I made this portrait of my wife Harriet soon after we began having Aesthetic Realism Consultations. I remember looking into her eyes and feeling so lucky we were learning how to have a good effect on each other. I wanted very much to capture some of the qualities in her that I fell in love with, including a deep friendliness I have come to count on. The photograph has a reposeful quality, with its symmetrical composition and distribution of light and dark—and from the moment we met, I did feel Harriet brought repose to my turbulent nature. But she is not just placid. Her gaze is penetrating, critical. I see a woman asking more of me, to meet her hopes and my own. And those lively strands springing out from her bound hair symbolize, for me, a dynamic self that will not be summed-up or contained, a self that after more than thirty-five years of marriage is more precious to me than ever.