When you meet her, she is like a glowing sunrise, like a cascade of blossoming gardenias falling down the hillside, a white floral skirt flowing down the deep green lawn. She is always kind and warm and classically elegant, lightening up her surroundings, but when you come near her, you find she is also sweet, like a deep and delicious perfume, heavy and refreshing, calming and invigorating.

In time, though, as she lets you know her, you come to discover behind the warmth and gentility within her eyes is a long stretching plain, and within she looks across it often.

She looks there, for beyond there are her dreams, of pine and fir, a sloping grade, the cool mountain air standing watch over her safe keep, the comfortable house, her modest palace surrounded by gardens tucked safely within the walls, her refuge and place of quiet safety, her bastion of light and warmth and hope against the unknown which has treated her indifferently.

She looks there, for beyond there are her memories, mined many years from long felt losses, the face deeply held and words recalled that shaped her heart and crafted the space that made her feel safe and loved, the space too soon vacated, leaving her with just fragmented memories and a few cherished intonations and phrases, and a girlhood gap she needed filled over the years with that tender soprano voice.

She looks there, while climbing up and over the hills of heartaches and disappointments and near-misses and betrayals she’s faced, trying to be a wife and a mother, a lover and a friend, a creator and a contributor, a competent and a capable- a human, and a woman- holding as close to her heart everything she has loved as hopes and hurt would allow, reaching across the miles within to pull them to that safe place, that sanctuary, her heart swims toward.

She is the sweetest woman when you meet her. She smiles at you and looks at you and speaks kindly with you, and makes you feel important and grounded. Still, inside she is fragile and frightened, but so strong, working hard to push the hurt out and to hold the hope in as she fights the fears and tears and years.

She is like a fragrant blooming gardenia in the spring and will make you feel warm and tranquil and light and happy, but inside, she keeps the eyes of her heart fixed across that immense valley, across that distant plain, to the place where her heart feels safe and warmth and peace and is at home.