She is not an ice skater. Let's make that clear up front. She does not dance ballet and she cannot balance angels on the heads of pins, philosophically speaking.

She is simple in her movement- succinct. It is not a contrived set of actions, just compact. She slips a hand under her skirt when she sits down, just so . She often puts on a shoe while standing on one foot, adjusting a bracelet and watching the weather...

while in our neck of the woods....
She never falls over.

Perhaps my respect comes from my own everyday clumsiness, my: hit the side of the door, jam my finger in the cabinet and cut my finger with the form letter from Roberts Siding . It's always something.

Except for her, when it's nothing.

She cannot snow ski and has no real athletic prowess. But she moves through her world without self injury and without breaking a sweat. She is busy, but not haried. Efficent, but not driven. The most I will see is her chin tilted to one side, an indication of forces put to bear. Things simply get done, smoothly.

Often she will come to me saying she can't open a jar (smiling, asking for help), but it may be she just wants me to feel better.

Can you open this?

Watch her slide into the passenger side seat, both legs moving righttoleft, no runs in hose, no hems caught. The minor tragedies of my day never come to her. No spilled coffee, no food on a collar. She just smiles when she hears of my day, shakes her head, smiles.

I know that it must be work, like a dancer or athlete who only makes it look easy, through efficent use of time and motion. But from where I sit it is so seamless it appears like knife through butter.

It would be easy for her to call me careless, but that wouldn't be smooth, so she doesn't.

Grace"ful (?), a.

Displaying grace or beauty in form or action; elegant; easy; agreeable in appearance; as, a graceful walk, deportment, speaker, air, act, speech.

High o'er the rest in arms the graceful Turnus rode. Dryden.

-- Grace"ful*ly, adv. Grace"ful*ness, n.

 

© Webster 1913.

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