Influenced By Moments

Mom said to me the other day “Sara March, why don’t you ever do anything normal”? “Well Mom, I get it honestly”, I replied.

You see, growing up, I was surrounded by very “curious, break the boundaries, seek the extraordinary” folks. Nothing was ever grandiose just always interesting.

#1 My Mom sees things just a little askew “always finding the beauty in simplicity”. She loves to cook, arts & crafts, garden, explore. She has been in numerous plays. She is extremely curious. Can’t stay awake in yoga. Made the Lexington NC Dispatch serving raw cauliflower and fresh curry dip 60 years ago. We ate boiled flounder like it was going out of style. Livers wrapped in bacon. Tons of fresh vegetables, homemade breads, lemon fluff, strawberry pie …… And she always adapted every recipe to make it her own.

Mom encouraged creativity. We have taken ceramics classes, cooking classes, jewelry making classes. My Halloween costumes were always the best and always homemade. She loves to give gifts. Nothing elaborate but always something special. Every gift is given totally with the person in mind. Cards are a must for all occasions and often homemade.

Our best school project was the Eskimo Village. Igloos were ping-pong balls cut in half and the snow was whipped laundry powder and water. I say “ours” because Mom enjoyed working on my school projects as much as I did. Mom encouraged our talent shows. My best friend and I were a 2 gal show – featuring none other then our favorite “The Peach “ that we wrote ourselves. We also performed different bits from “Free to Be You and Me”. Donations were accepted as entrance fee so folks could give us as much as they wanted. And who wouldn’t want to give 2 precious little girls lots of $ that we’d stuff into our ceramic banks “for the future”.

Mom never stifled my imagination/creativity. I am sure if “alrighty then” hand been as common as it is now it would have been used often. She totally went with the story that the fire hydrant jumped out in front of me. She always set 2 extra places at the table every birthday for my imaginary friends Balloony and Trotter. Honestly, I am surprised she did not set 1 more for her imaginary friend Alfonso Bosioski Rabinowich. And she never flenched when I walked in with purple hair one day. I was playing a joke on her and dang if she didn’t get me.

And oh man is she silly. She can get her giggle boxed turned over at the slightest thing — ask her sometime about Purple Pants.

#2 My grandmother, “the original Sara March” was curious like none other. She had breast cancer twice – 20 years apart from one another. 2nd time around, she spent more time discussing with the doctors about the advancement in research and technology then versus 20 prior, then she did about her own treatment plan. She never read just a book on a subject – she would read entire volumes. She’d read them 3 or 4 times and under line and highlight and go to discussion groups. She even went to the Holy Land to research. She brought water from the River Jordan to use in my baptism.

#3 My Aunt – a curious one too. Auntie has never been afraid to try anything ONCE. Oh the tales I could tell. All I really have to say is my cousin looked at me one time and said, “you don’t just look like her, you talk like her, you act like her, you even have the same mannerisms and facial expressions.

#4 My best friend’s Mom, MH. I loved to visit my friend’s house. It was always quite the creative & imaginary environment – seizing the moment opportunities and just outright full of fun.

We’d supplement our talent show money with the money we made up making up the beds in her house. We would get .25 a bed. You see our show money was our savings and our supplemental income was our cash flow. So we’d hop, skip & jump right on over to Community Drug with our quarters and buy dipsticks and pop rocks.

We’d have beauty pageants, foraging through MH’s closets – Oh My!
Played school with all kinds of crazy math problems – not sure why we picked math.
MH always had awesome magazines and artwork – visual stimulation at its best. We translated it into lots of graffiti drawn & our names etched in every crawl in space in the house. We didn’t think any one knew at the time –but I hear tell it is all there to this day.

We’d make the hammock into a big ship and swing so high until we would fall out and get the wind knocked out of us at least once. MH would join in our role-playing as the Dr. of the Captain and 1st mate. When it snowed – she would tell us it really was not snow – it was God throwing down confetti. Of course we had to go see for sure. And yes, our little minds believed it was indeed confetti : )

Oh and the food. There was always fresh ripe cantaloupe in the fridge. Ready to eat – peeled and cut into wedges. I still do this to this day. But the most famous recipe of them all …. her marinated tomatoes!