Life is simple and Nana is the queen of simplicity.

Her eyes are gray and are coveted by the crevasses of crow’s feet, old and original as folklore. Depending on the weather, or her sweater of choice, her eyes may briefly turn teal or ocean water blue or a subtle sage hue. They are like overcast days awaiting the summer monsoons – a comfort and warmth, but they also, somehow, are sharp, and sparkle like diamonds. I have noticed, in admiration, that they sparkle most vividly when she invites me into stories of her past or when she picks flowers from her cabaña in the backyard. They look like dead weeds in the Arizona heat, dry enough to turn to dust, but in her diamond carved eyes they are vibrant wildflowers.

Afternoons with Nana at her kitchen counter, sprinkled with crystal bowls full of cashews and pistachios, are my source of joy, my source of education, of wisdom and wilderment. I don’t drink my coffee black unless I’m with her. She pours coffee from the pot, which has settled and cooled to room temperature from sitting out since morning. She puts two mugs in the microwave. Nana knows one setting: the thirty-second preset.

“One beep or two,” she asks. “I can never ‘member.” We drink our coffee together, and she asks if I take anything in it. “Honey, do you take anything in your coffee? I hope not. We don’t have anything.” Her eyes glisten with a smile. I do, usually; light cream or sugar, or some combination of the two. I take anything in my coffee just so long as it’s not too bitter, but when I’m with Nana, the bitterness disappears. Black coffee tastes rich, robust and sweet. She has that way about her; her eyes show she can be trusted, that she should be fully experienced. So I drink my coffee black with her, to experience what she does, sip by sip. If I do, maybe between conversation as rich as the dark roast coffee and her gray eyes, she will spill into my being, my soul, my innate nature by some grace of God. She possesses an intrinsic appeal about her that captivates me and makes me want to be her disciple and see the world not through bitterness but through a robust, simple vigor for life. So I drink my coffee black.

Nana reaches for the wilting bouquet, delicately, with her hands that are adorned with veins like rivers. Her skin is the softest I’ve ever touched and her hands are intentional and graceful with every motion, and cold to the touch.

“Cold hands, warm heart,” she says.

Her gray eyes sparkle in contrast with the light, white linen she wears— something she has had “for a hundred years” and perfect for the desert heat. In the light, and highlighted by her white linen, her eyes adjust in waves, transitioning from gray to a sage hue and back again. Her lips purse together every so often when she talks, and they are tinted with a subtle rose pink colored lipstick – the only trace of makeup she will wear, but swears she cannot live without. Her mark is left on the rim of her coffee mug.

The bouquet is a collection of desert brush, fingertip touches away from turning to dust, but to her it is bursting with beauty. It is a combination of over-sunned, colorless roses and faded purple Texas Rangers, with unrecognizable twigs arranged throughout. She exclaims in question, "Oh, darling, did you see my flowers? I picked them from the yard.” With diamonds in her eyes, she gracefully thrusts her head back with a chuckle. The sparkle turns from simple joy to complex reminiscence. She is not making eye contact with me, which means she is lost in thought, lost in her childhood or past, a look I have become familiar with. Suddenly, coffee half full and still steaming, she is in her memories; she has pieces of her past that illuminate her present, that helps her see beauty today in what others overlook.

When she remembers, she detaches away from the current world for an overstayed moment, stuck in thick air, and she blinks, slowly, until the diamond from her eyes lock with the new sparkle in mine, and bittersweet memories dance across her face. At this, I understand I should listen to every drip of sound that so effortlessly falls off her tongue. The stories of her past are some I have heard countless times, but when that mode of reminiscence captivates her, her stories feel new. She admires the weeds, dry and wilting dregs of desert brush, sitting in the crystal vase from the dollar store. She opens her mouth and she is dripping diamonds. I sip my coffee and listen intently, trying to catch them.

“This bouquet reminds me of the lemon leaves I would gather when I lived in Lincoln. Have I told you that story? About the lemon leaves?”

Her stories are as fresh as the smell of citrus every time she relives them, so I say, “No, I don’t remember that story,” knowing I would learn something new today, or see the world in a different—a better— light. She turns her head again, gently, but with purpose. She exudes an understated elegance and is unaware of it. Her skin, soft and wrinkled, wraps around her watery, silver eyes. She is remembering and reliving.

“Oh, Honey. We were so poor.”

Time stops and I am with her.

“I would walk down to the closest florist shop just to smell the flowers. Oh, they were beautiful. Most days, the florist would be trimming the leaves, using them for decoration. They were lemon leaves, and oh, they were so green.”

“Honey, we were so poor. But I decided that they were beautiful, and so I would ask for them. I would ask the florist, I’d just like a little bouquet of lemon leaves, please – nonchalantly, like. She would look at me funny, and I’d say, Well, I think they’re beautiful and besides, I can afford them. So, she sold me a whole bouquet of them for fifty cents. It was perfect, honey, and innovative when I think about it.”

She traces the corner of her lips with her index finger and thumb. Then she laughs. The kind that is hearty and contagious. It is infectious and, while our coffee chills, we revel in laughter, forgetting what was funny.

After composing ourselves and realizing our coffee has cooled, her gray eyes of comfort, and solitude, and joy, and gleam, and patience, and love, and beauty, and insight, and life; rest. She blinks slowly again and I am captivated by her beautifully simple life, or simply beautiful life.

“Oh, darling, aren’t these flowers beautiful? I picked them this morning. Would you like another cup of coffee? I hope you don’t take sugar ‘cause we don’t have any.”

This time I reflected her sparkle.

“They are beautiful, Nana. They remind me of lemon leaves.”