This is my attempt to rationalize beauty.

A few years ago I saw a woman riding on a
green bicycle. I don’t know how to explain it,
but something clicked in me, and I was never
the same again, though the woman will never

know I exist, let alone that she’s affected my
life in so profound a way. All of my failed attempts
at novels, including the one I’m currently in the
process of disappointing myself with, have been called

The Woman on the Green Bicycle. I think of
her every day. I haven’t the slightest idea why.
I don’t try to invent stories for her, but appreciate
that one little image I have of her.

Mom was driving me home from school. The
Woman was crossing a busy intersection on her
green bicycle. “Do you see her, Mom?” I asked.
She didn’t understand. But I knew I had witnessed

an act of beauty.