Thursday, August 28, 2014

Ode to Sarah


 


 Sarah flitted by my office one day and then returned to land lightly on my heart and soul.  When beautiful butterflies cross our paths, we notice them.  Sarah is so like those winged creatures.

Sarah and Shane
     She was working at an insurance company when she came to pick-up a friend's child at my school. She returned the next day and tendered a sweet letter about how she loved kids, how she would volunteer and how she wished to be at the school in any capacity.  I hired her as a teacher for the coming year and the adventure began.

    A week later I passed a couple of women talking on the street.  One was dressed in a ball gown and tennis shoes.  Her voice sounded like Sarah's, but she had dark hair and Sarah's was light hair.  A second look made me realize that it was Sarah.  Quintessential Sarah.  Dressed for a romp in the mountains for her birthday.  For all of the years following, Sarah would transform her appearance like a butterfly.  Her hair in varying shades from purple to blond to shaved and back.  Her clothes ever changing, sewed and resewed in new designs week by week.  The local newspaper did an article on the clothes that she was making calling her a "second-hand Deva".  She is the only person that I know that would have worn this dress if she had had the chance:


       In a magical way Sarah fashioned relationships much in the way she selected or created her distinctly unique wardrobe.  She made entrances into lives with a flounce, cloaked in surprises, zippered in joy and cut from a quality of cloth few are privileged to possess.


     Sensible, no nonsense dressers like myself were tempted around Sarah to wear tie dye again, dance, wade in a stream and shovel dirt while wearing white like in this photo of Sarah working at school.
Moving dirt for a work party.
      Picture our Sarah with her hands guiding cloth past a needle spotlighted by a single light bulb as she adds some detail to the outfit for the day.  Her attention turned to the space between her hands, thinking about the possibilities, the pleasure of the moment, the feel of the fabric, the promise of what lay ahead.  Her teaching was also like this.  She was fascinated by possibilities, willing to listen carefully and look to the future child-by-child.


     Shoddy weaves, poorly conceived design, the dishonesty of faulty construction saddened her.  With Sarah's integrity she would make relationships constructed on generosity, well-justified conceptions and honesty.  Sarah wouldn't have tolerated the ill-treatment of seamstresses or weavers or children or friends or family.

     Unique.  Do you really know anyone else like Sarah?  The closest that you might come is Krista,  another teacher of little ones, and Sarah's best friend.

Sarah and Krista at the Goodbye Party
     We will all miss Sarah's joy even as we wish her well as she flirts off sewing a new life in a new town with people, whom as her husband says, "do not know what magic is coming their way."
 
This Magic!

1 comment:

  1. Charming and so Sarah-like in exquisite design of words woven with elegance and de-light of creating the unique expression of heart and soul~~

    ReplyDelete

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