She is beauty grown older, a little softer in the middle, a little harder around the edges. You think of her as desert winter, a cool, dry breeze in the dusty wilderness of your thirsty existence. She is straightness and angles, subtle curves. Looking at her arid beauty, one might suppose her voice to sound worn or strained, but it is softness and depth and warmth. We can, none of us, remember the perfection of youth, full and firm and foolish, too dumb to acknowledge what we cannot do, accomplishing boldly the questionable. Round here we're all a little worn, eroded by the flow of time, etched by the winds of change. And she is what beauty becomes through constant, long practice of being beautiful. You want to approach her, to put your hands on her slender sides and pull her close. You want to kiss the lines of her smile on the dark skin beside her eye. You want to dance with her slowly and quietly to the sigh of this desert wind, the grit of sand under your feet, thin clouds passing white in the blue far above. "I love you more than the memory of you," you want to whisper in her ear.
Hello, friends. I trust you're well.
Later. Love.
