The Violet: Quietly Tends Care

Guide 6 of 8 · A field guide for women veterans using the Wildflower Assessment

Violet · Purple · Southwest

She set the lemon bars on the table without saying a word about them.

She did forty things no one saw. That wasn’t small. That was the whole thing. She didn’t mention that three weeks ago, during a conversation most people had already forgotten, someone in the group said offhand that lemon bars were their favorite. She just made them, drove them over, and put them down. Then she went and found a seat — not at the center of the table, but close enough to watch the door.

She had positioned herself near the coffee before anyone arrived. Not because someone asked her to. Because she knew that if a new woman walked in not knowing anyone, the coffee area was the right place to be — somewhere to stand, something to do with your hands, a natural reason to make conversation. When the new woman came in, the Violet was already there. She asked if she wanted a cup. The new woman’s shoulders came down about an inch, and they walked in together.

Violet is the roots, not the face.

By the end of that meeting, the Violet had said maybe four things out loud. She had done about forty things no one saw.

That is not a small thing. That is the whole thing.

If you recognized yourself in that woman — the one who remembered, who noticed, who showed up in ways the room did not always register — this guide is for you. You have probably spent a significant portion of your life being told you are not doing enough, not showing up enough, under-credited leadership. You have probably wondered, more than once, whether blooming the way you bloom counts.

It compounds. The garden cannot survive without it. You just need the language to understand why it has been so hard for certain terrain to see it.

That is what this guide is for.