"Sunbursts can appear in photographs when taking a picture of the sun through the diaphragm of a lens set to a narrow aperture due to diffraction; the effect is often called a sunstar."
February morning, just after sunrise. Steam rising from the night-time drizzle, sun glint between cedar pickets. Astra, the kitten, is chasing a beetle as black and shiny as she is. Existential dread gathers in the sodden wood, but I tell myself to let it rise and disappear like the steam from the rain. It will be alright, I said.
And it was.
