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Herself conducts alumni interviews for her alma mater, and it is now interviewing season. This is the -- thirteenth? fourteenth? -- umpteenth year that she has spoken to a multitude of bright and eager students, asking them questions about their plans, their hopes, and their interests, in an effort to get a glimpse of their personality. Would they be a good fit for the rigors of the school? Would they take advantage of the many marvelous opportunities they would find before them? Would they be an asset to their peers, to the community? It's quite the tricky job to put a young person at ease, to ask the right questions to help them to speak about their passions and their dreams, and to somehow capture this little piece of their personality in a written report for the Admissions Committee, all within an hour or two. And in the grand scheme of things, the report may not be given much weight. Still, Herself tries, every year, to make a difference.

She recently spoke to a young woman who had moved to the southwest after living her first decade in the northeast. The young woman said that when she went back to the northeast to visit, she was struck by how much "the sky is smaller there."

Ah. Yes, it is.

After nineteen years in the desert, Herself has grown accustomed to the expanses of emptiness, the mountains in the distance and the weather patterns that can be seen miles and miles away. These are some of the most beautiful aspects of the desert. The trees of the northeast, although also quite lovely, can be confining. They make the sky smaller.

We do love the bigger sky here. In fact, Herself's favorite part of the drive to visit Cherished Friend is indeed that tremendous sky -- the miles slip away so soothingly underneath it.

I would love to be out under that sky at night. Oh, the stars. Perhaps someday, soon.

(On the way home, last visit.)