The Person I Aspire to Be

The boys and I finished The Second Mrs. Giaconda today. I have read this half a dozen times or more, but not since moving to Virginia. And I was struck again by the ending: if I had to come up with a secular description of who I strive to be, this is it.

This was a woman who knew that she was not pretty and who had learned to live with that knowledge. This was a woman whose acceptance of herself had made her beautiful in a deep and hidden way. A woman whose look told you that you were being sized by a measuring rod in her head; a measuring rod on which she alone had etched the units. A woman who knew how to give pleasure and how to give pain. A woman who knew how to endure. A woman of layers.