If you’ll indulge and forgive me, I’d like to write in the present tense:
Sarah’s favourite time in the life of growing things is when they first poke their little heads up through the soil to take a look around. As an Aries metal rabbit, that would make sense. She’s a first bud, an explorer, an adventurer and innovator. New spring green is one of her favourite colours as is deep cobalt blue and lemony sun yellow.
Sarah is immortal in all of us. Formational. Foundational. She has imbued our lives with a sense of wonder, even about the most common things. She creates rich ritual around almost everything to remind us of how important it is to hold everything in an honouring way.
‘Nasties’ are one of her favourite food garnishes. (edible nasturtiums)
She is a lover of stinky cheese, rich deep sauces and bold flavours. Conversely, she lives mostly on crisp fresh garden greens. No one understands her love affair with kale…
Sarah has been recycling since before most people knew what that meant. By example, she encourages us to do the same. She saves the tiniest bit and end of a cheese to place somewhere on her plate and honour it. Hard old end crusts of bread find their way to a bird feeder. I’m sure Sarah is the first person I heard say ‘compost’. Her thoughtfully wrapped gifts are often ensconced in re-used wrinkly tissue and string with an exquisite flower or bauble laid across the top.
She talks to all living things and not a few non-living objects.
In the early days, I sometimes thought Sarah ‘flaky’ and unrealistic, yet she holds her ground ferociously insisting on the somatic way of understanding. She is incredibly generous and open. I have also seen her intense dark blue eyes narrowing in calculation about some point, accompanied by her cackling laugh. Initially, my ability to grasp her way of moving through the world had been bounded by my own limited experience. We are both children of alcoholic families. I tried to create structure to understand the world and survive; Sarah tossed boundaries and has explored herself and her world through creative expression. By association, my world exploded into possibility with fuzzier edges…a deep fresh breath of sensory exploration framed in ’not-knowing’. And she’s adept at left brain stuff, taking care of business as she must. Sarah is not daunted by big ideas and new paradigms. She embraces them, turning them over in her mind and letting them stew with her countless other learnings.
Sarah is not afraid.
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