My hero does not carry a gun. She has not sculpted her body. She does not shave her legs or under her arms. And she most especially does not wax her bikini area. My hero did not train in the military to make her mind rigid. She did not join a gym to make her muscles hard. She does not have to prove anything.

My hero does not go to a hairdresser. She doesn’t cover her face with fake colors or a veil or her hand when she laughs. She doesn’t wear high heels. My hero never had a rib removed. She shudders at the thought of liposuction. She likes her nose just fine.

When Destiny touched my hero it did not call her Dick or Buck or even Sir. There were hundreds of quests she could have accepted, each involving a bullet or sword or fist, each with the prerequisite collection of battle scars, the leanness, the meanness, the penis on the shoulder. But most were the vengeful paths of victims. The cornered quarry’s desperate attempt to escape the hunter by killing him. The old sometimes you gotta stand up for what you believe in. Erect, that is. And my hero was not the hell-bent-for-leather type. She was not a victim.

My hero’s quest is a tree. It is a conversation. It is a child with wings. Its course is a constellation seen from within. Its orbit is a song. My hero’s quest will work changes upon the world like a wave on the ocean floor. Deep, blue changes. She will be felt like a vibration in space, like one string in a violin store. Her path will cross a million others whose travelers will never know her name or her race or her cup size. My hero will never be famous.

She is a whisper. She is warm water. She is nutmeg and jade. My hero can cry. My hero can laugh. She is strong. She is weak. And she is not just my hero. She’s her own.