(Originally posted at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/malcolm-campbell/remembering-2019/10151163314784995 )
It’s a cold night, there’s a faint sparkling of frost on the road, and it’s not the kind of night I’d take my motorbike for a ride. But it’s that night – thirteen years on from the night when my beloved friend Sarah died. You’d think you’d remember someone less, year on year – but I remember her more. Every year, I revisit everything I’ve thought, and written, and sung, and drawn… and I remember something else, another memory bubbles into my mind as I ride from the hospice where she died, the same route I rode that night, past her old flat, and then turn off for home.
I want to be magic. I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile. I want to be a friend of elves and live in a tree. Or under a hill. I want to marry a moonbeam and hear the stars sing. I don't want to pretend at magic anymore. I want to be magic.
(Charles de Lint)
Magic was always around Sarah – from the time we sat on top of a huge rock near Crieff and she told me about the faeries that lived under it, to our walks in Roslin Glen finding the hidden faces in everything, to gathering only the right number of mussels on the shore on Bute to make breakfast (who else would have mussels for breakfast?).
This picture, one of my favourites of her, was shared with the first writing about her I did after she left us – but with the demise of Livejournal, the picture vanished from the internet. It’s such a magical picture of her, it deserves to resurface. It captures her as well as any words could – she always said she was a creature of fairie that the world couldn’t hold forever – and when I see this picture, I see her heading away on new adventures.
I ride on this night every year, I write about her every year, I raise a glass to her every year – because there is no better way to remember someone than to create traditions around them. But I remember her every single day. I remember her laugh, I remember her being annoying, I remember her being wise when I didn’t want her to be, and how much of a social chameleon she could be. I remember her introducing me to the Foo Fighters, or me introducing her to Live, or swapping Charles de Lint books, watching movies together, our usual spots for coffee. Every memory is precious, and as they bubble to the surface, I hold onto them.
It’s an easy promise, Sarah. No-one could ever forget you.
For those that didn’t know her, this is what I wrote after she died: https://www.skirnir.com/seolta/sarah/
All my posts about Sarah are saved here now: https://www.skirnir.com/seolta/