She has a special kind of beauty of the soul. The rare kind that absorbs pain from others and grants them relief and freedom in turn, but she suffers for it.

Now, we are both so frail that we must look like little James tucked inside his giant peach as we curl up close to one another.

A dandelion appears in the empty expanse between my ears where rambling thoughts just recently echoed. It’s the kind of dandelion that’s covered in fluffy seeds, like tiny feather parasols, just waiting to be carried off on a warm breeze on a hazy day. I don’t need to remember the dandelion, or anything at all for that matter, but I do because I like the ritual of it all. It’s like tipping my hat to the universe before it opens a door for me to walk through. I worry that if I stop giving thanks then maybe next time it’ll refuse me passage, and I’ll be locked somewhere I don’t want to be. So now every time I do this I pick a memory (or rather a memory picks me as I just wait for one to pop into my mind), and I give thanks.