Each waystation here presumes its antecedent, yet doesn’t clearly anticipate
what follows. Like: A good map for hiking to a peak tells nothing of what’s ahead
in the days, though all the zigzagging—uphill, downhill—is drawn by the same high appeal. [The following starts low, gets very uphill, then quite downhill.]

The narrator is an academic man writing a gifted teenage “woman” whose mother
he knew. Though he intends to be accessibly worthwhile, he becomes an allegory
of feminism finding itself in history.

We grow up to find that we’re in evolution (some of us do)—devo-evo of a life, so to speak, growing to find ourselves in eonic being. Some of us hope to make lasting contributions: devo-evo at a higher register (beyond finding: enabling and advancing, as in fine teaching or influential work)—which he wishes for her grand potential.

Also, he’s writing himself at her mother’s age, as if to defend flying against charges of groundless transgression (which family, friends, etc. commonly imply that artists, academics, etc. should need to defend).