I have been following the seasons around and this one, autumn, is here again, new, turning the sumac red. The clouds are heavy, hang low, and scud across the horizon, dragging their dark, ragged edges over the brightly lit grain stubble. Sometimes it's as though a door has opened into the landscape so that we can see clearly each leaf, the sharp outline of each grass blade, and know for an instant just why we are here on this earth that is so loaded down with beauty it is about to tip over.

“Lonely isn’t being alone. It’s the feeling that nobody cares.”

“And no one is me. No one is you. This is solitude.”

…a deep sadness I'd felt before, long, long ago. I remembered that sadness very well. A sadness that can't be explained, that doesn't melt away over time, that quietly leaves invisible wounds, in a place you cannot see. And how can you deal with something you can't see?

By preference she lived in lonely quiet amid flowers, music, and books, letting the world go its way or come to her if it must.