The Wise Women

I've been spending a lot of my time lately in the company of wise women. Elders who school me gently in the fine art of life, their hands soft on my back as I navigate mine. Mothers with work writtten on their faces and arms aching from the weight of all they choose to carry with a weary smile. Corporate wonderwomen who dazzle their field but still have to fight for it to be level. The Autumn women I crave whose decades are finally devoted to the pursuit of their passions, having once set them to merely simmer as their other choices boiled over.

Girls newly minted as adults navigating uncharted seas, standing proudly at the helm even as they loll dangerously, the wind whipping their hair across their shining eyes. Grandmothers whose eyes sparkle too with the blinding light of a life lived fully and without regret. Ladies whose wide smiles mask their deeper fear and their handcuffed pain, whose battles rage internally, who fight some days just to stay afloat.

And in each of them this common thread, a way of seeing beyond appearances, sharpened with wit and tempered with understanding. The pause. That look. The slow reveal. The raucous laughter. The healing tears. The softest skin of your hand on mine.

I am finally beginning to understand just how it is we hold the universe together.

She was unstoppable, not because she didn't have fears or doubts, but because she continued on despite them
~ Beau Taplin

Words c. Kerrie Basha 2025