S p i r i t . wherever your feet find the earth, hold close the beauty you behold, and let it nourish the spirit that dwells within you.” “a letter that I write to the inner child within.” You are my paper boat fragile, light, a miracle of balance upon the water, and I tremble when the rain comes, for I would lift you in my hands and shelter you from every drop. You are the apple I bite into when the world is too heavy the sweetness that makes my head swim, the unexpected taste that wakes my soul. You are the weather vane that spins against the wind, following no compass but your own heart. And I I follow you. You are the scale that weighs my quiet hours, measuring not minutes, but the music of our silences. You are the tear in the sky where my dreams escape, yet somehow return to me warmer, wrapped in your voice. You are my wound without pain, my closed window that still lets the air in a girl, mother, woman you live in every season of my life. You are my rain cloud, brimming and generous, that kisses the thirsty earth. You are the blanket that holds me when winter tightens its grip, the candle that dares to shine in my darkest rooms. You are the road that always brings me home, the roadside bar where I rest and gather my breath, the unclaimed land where my soul runs free. I love you in every way a heart can love in the softness of dawn, in the heavy gold of late afternoon, in the quiet of the night when your breath is my anchor. I love you just as you are in all your winds and silences, in all your rain and fire, in all your beginnings and endings. And if I could, I would place the whole sky in your hands, so you would never forget you are my world, my shelter, my forever.