More Sage observations

 

(School photo)

The fact sheet

Full name:  Sage-blossom Margaret Plumb Cheesman

Favorites:  Food – autumn salad  Music – Chinese  Color – white

Second of four biological children of Andrew Cheesman and Savannah Plumb Cheesman

Middle name, Margaret, is from Savannah’s beloved aunt, who died when Savannah was a teenager

Sometimes I look at Sage-blossom and wonder, how on earth could she possibly be my daughter? 

It’s not because she’s been rebellious, or because she’s been out of control.  Quite the contrary.  And that’s why I wonder how on earth this child could possibly have come out of me. 

She is the complete opposite of what I was as a teen. 

She’s a middle aged woman trapped inside the body of a fifteen year old girl.

She loves the outdoors, like her dad, and she loves animals, especially dogs and horses.  She has asked to grow a veggie garden.  We keep saying no because we’re renting our house in Hidden Springs.  Sometimes I think she should have been a 60s flower child.  Sometimes I think she might have been a nun in her former life. 

I’ve also discovered that she is a vegetarian.  I didn’t find this out from her, but from Max, our butler, who’s been cooking a lot of tofu meals.  I’m not entirely happy with this but it’s her life and her decision not to eat meat.  I try to keep hands off of my children, to let them develop as they may, but this is hard for me because I am, admittedly, a bit of a control freak.

She is also very much an environmentalist, and she’s been this way since she was tiny.   When she was little she had to do a science project to collect insects.  She was all too happy to do it, but she was so upset that she couldn’t find this rare water beetle that she cried for a couple of days about it.  Days.  It took Andy and me forever to calm her down.  She ended up doing a school report (on her own) about the extinction of the water beetle. 

A couple of nights Sage even sneaked out and actually slept in her treehouse.  She loved playing in it.  We built the same kind of treehouse for Sierra and, quite honestly, Andy and I have spent more time in it than she has. 

It’s how we got Skylar.

But I digress. 

Sage is much the same way now, but instead of going to the treehouse, she is taking long nature walks into the woods (taking nature photos along the way and, apparently, still collecting insects), going fishing, and riding her horse.  When I look back, she was this way at seven, eight years old.  She is still my little Sage-blossom, just taller. She has not changed.

She always had this ‘old soul’ quality about her.  It almost seems like she’s been here before. 

Indeed, I worry that she seems to prefer animals to people.  She’d rather ride her horse than drive a car.  Her closest companions are her dog, Bitsy, and her horse Traveller. 

She’s tickled pink that AJ is back, though.  The other day they did a karaoke duet in the backyard.

I wish I could say she and Sierra get along as well.  Sure, they tolerate each other, and both have blond hair and blue eyes, but that’s about where the similarities end.  They are night and day different, with very little in common. Sierra is much more like I was growing up, very rambunctious and a bit on the rebellious side.  In addition, she is very athletic and sporty.  Sage is on the artistic/creative side of the spectrum. 

This was the backdrop of a nearly four-hour conversation the other morning at the breakfast table.  Just Sage and me, no one else around. 

Apparently she’d been through the private museum, the room in my parents’ house I’m most proud of. 

"Mom?"
"Yeah, baby?"
"All those old bowls and stuff?"
"Huh?"
"Where'd they come from?"
I hesitated, taking lots of pauses and deep breaths. I knew my kids were going to ask me about my adventuring life at some point. 
"Before you were born, baby, I told you, I used to live quite a different life from the one I lead now."
"What kind of different life?"
"Oh, I used to do a lot of traveling, different countries. I used to do paid archaeology work and there's a part of me that still wants to do that. That urge doesn't go away. At times it was dangerous work. Disarming traps, walking through fire, exploring tombs, fighting mummies –"
I saw Sage’s eyes popped open.
"I've had enough electricity shot through me to power an entire town for a year."
"How did you get the stuff? Some of those vases in there have to be really really old."
"They are really really old, baby. They date back thousands and thousands of simyears."
"Some of those vases are really beautiful. Can I bring one to school?"
I smiled. "Sure, as long as you bring it back."