her name means pastoral settings & simple pleasures

She skipped class to drive me to the airport, on the road that snakes its way up to they city where her ex-boy friend lives. Willowy & golden, she practically glows. She is way smarter than your average bear, but moves like a gazelle. She notices, remembers, analyzes, intuits, laughs, does, thinks. Our friendship, forged the first week of classes, gives the real value to our $80,000 program. He dumped her, though, out of the blue and in the worst way imaginable: without a single attempt at an explanation. The Truly Wonderful Girl & the EMOTIONALLY STUNTED COWARD is the name of the forthcoming book.

Even so, driving me into the holiday weekend and through the rush hour traffic, she looks out the window, toward the city where he lives. It's times like this I really miss him, she says. He was always so good at braking in traffic and I just make myself carsick. We laugh for a minute but quickly turn sad. She gets it you see -- that all we really have to work with are little pieces, moments, and things knitted together, forming people and relationships. Our lives.