sageness

And even at 22, she possessed a sageness about relationships.

She became a savior in the fact that she created space for me to sit in the kitchen and eavesdrop on grown folks’ business, which was largely my auntie, Linda Gail, doing people’s hair, and my auntie Joyce, just kind of playing the mediator, and my grandmother, who was always very light on words, but whenever she spoke she had a gravity and a sageness to her that was particularly loving.

It is sageness crowned with levity, what Aristotle meant when he spoke of “educated insolence.”

Stricter than previous shows it may have been, but the sageness of higher necklines and lower hems was shot down in many pieces with cheeky flesh-baring cutouts -- a wink from a house that prides itself on nonchalance.

"She leaves it to papa to do," said Maggie, with dignity and sageness.