Isola

by Allegra Goodman

“Forgive me,” I called out, and I meant forgive my lack of faith, my anger, and my willfulness—but most of all, I begged forgiveness for hiding in my cave. Silently, I pleaded, Raise me. Bring me back. Gather me as the tide gathers shards of ice.

Such a profound moment in the story after she looked at the amazing beauty of the world before her.

This was my prayer. Not for rescue or escape, but for my soul, which had been sick. I gazed at waves rising and shattering, and this was my resolve—to remember myself as God remembered me.

Such a neat part in the story.

I took out Auguste’s paper and turned a piece to its blank side. I built up the fire and melted snow to mix with ink now dried, and I began a new calendar. I had no idea of the date, but I wrote it as the first of April and I called it Easter because, on this day, I returned to life.

I walked outside to see my island reawakening, and it was neither bitterness I felt nor gladness but a release from fear. With clear eyes, I met each day.

I just love this.

Slipping her gift onto my finger, I thought, I am the gold coin. I was lost and now am found. And it made me laugh to think I was the coin and also the housewife laundering.

Yes. We are definitely all.these things.

Wild thoughts, but I was wild. Ideas unbecoming—but what had I become? I, myself, was now an island, solitary. Brambles and five-petalled flowers were my garden. Rocks my furniture. Ocean waves my lessons. Sadness overwhelmed me and sank back. Then, like the tide, joy crept in on me again.

The ideas of mourning in this book, and trying to live and survive, are just so well done. How can you not have all these emotions and thoughts?

“I have felt as you have,” the Queen said. “I have doubted and despaired. I have known my soul to be wicked, and I have searched in scripture for the comfort that you found. I have been alone, bereft, but I know now that in solitude we find our way, and in learning, and in God’s word. Do not be surprised,” she added, “to hear that I have also searched for truth and certainty, and I have found them rarer and more precious than pearls.”

The journey. The walk. We all go on it.