The One where Sage Leaves

After I read the text message I knew she had something to tell me.

“Just seeing what you’re up to! Can I call you tomorrow?” It read.

This was coming from Sage and I don’t think I ever talked to Sage on the phone before. We exchanged texts; wishing each other “Happy weekends” or sending back and forth pictures of pretty flowers and Yogi tea bag quotes. But never, not once, had she texted me to ask if she could call me. I could have sworn she was going to call to say she was pregnant. We all knew she wanted to settle down and start a family and I told her she better call me to let me know when that day came.
Maybe it had come? I quickly texted her back, making a phone date for the next night, thinking hard of what I might buy for her baby shower gift.
Little did I know that the call had nothing to do with a new little baby.
The next night she would tell me her and her husband were moving out of the Keys, back to Melbourne, Florida where they were born and raised, to settle down and one day soon perhaps, start a family.
She had wanted to leave the Keys for a while now, and I was surprised to find that only two months after I left and moved away, she would be moving away too.

All I could think about was the bakery.
This place full of cupcakes and love and sprinkles and ice cream and pinks and blues and glitter and girls. This magical place that brought us together and I could not imagine her not being a part of.
She gave the bakery its grace and goodness.
She gave it her everything. Sweat, stress, long days and years of hard work.
Her shoes would never be able to be filled. It’s hard to replace a perfect person.

After I made the decision to stay and make a life in the Keys (after my long and adventurous road trip south, which is a whole different story for a whole different blog post) I searched every local paper in Marathon, Florida looking for a job. I knew I could be a waitress easily, but skimming over one paper I found an advertisement looking for morning bakers at a bakery in town. Sold. Baking couldn’t be that hard, right?
I drove down the road, found the pink lettered sign reading Sweet Savannah’s, and walked into this tiny yet adorable bakery turned ice cream shop at night. I asked the girl behind the counter for an application and within minutes I was hired by my two new bosses who were both named Kate. I started training that Sunday, 8 am sharp, with Sage. I had never met a Sage before.
I liked the name already.

She is the type of person who wears oversized, Katharine Hepburn sunglasses while making cookie dough. “It’s too keep the flour from getting in my eyes,” she says softly, as she turns and gives me a wide smile as I snap her picture.
She is the type of girl who drives a black pickup truck even though her favorite color is pink and she acts as if she should be driving a yellow convertible buggy with dreamcatchers painted on the side.
She has tiny wrists and boney hands, but can lift bags of sugar and boxes of chocolate chips like it is nothing at all.
Never does she seem stressed, or appear to be in a rush. Never does she burn the cookies or praise herself for baking loads of key lime pies or hundreds of cupcakes at lightning speed.
She is a baking goddess. Even if a baker was never what she wanted to be, she became one and perfected the art. She makes the job look easy and flawless.
I never did figure out her equation, though I like to think I came close.

We were friends long before we met.
She reminds me of a cousin I have who worships her long brown hair.
I remind her of one of her high school friends named Beth who likes to run a lot.
After that first day of training, we mold together fast.
For lunch, we share Asian salad kits, splitting the contents into 2 plastic Ziploc containers. She always finished first and we never knew where she packs it all away.
We are both workout fanatics; understanding the effects of how a good workout can make you feel like a new person. We exchange ab routines, lunge techniques, and the best running routes in town. She teaches me how to do a squat the correct way.
We love lacey bralettes; our smaller boob size catering to non-wire bras much easier than the other girls at work. We love having an excuse to get dressed up. We love the process of picking out the perfect outfit or dress, then the shoes, then the jewelry. Then the makeup, and matching bag, along with nail color and lip stick shade. I began joining her when she would get pedicures after work and it became my new favorite way to spend $40.
She made me fall in love with being a girl again. She taught me how to embrace and flaunt my womanhood. She got married when she was only 20 years old and has been a wife and homemaker for six full years. I am one-year younger and still cannot fathom the thought of roasting a chicken, let alone being engaged or married to anyone. She amazes me with her wisdom and maturity, while at times making me doubt my own.
Despite our differences, she still wrote in a letter to me that I am one of her best friends.
I think my love grew double for her that day.

Living on an island is challenging because you can only drive so far and grow so much. At first it is fresh and exciting, as any new place is, but after a few months of learning the territory and trying out all the restaurants and one movie theater within the 13-mile radius it all becomes familiar. Fast.
She had lived in the Keys for a good five years when I first met her and I could see it in her eyes. She always hinted that she and her husband Daniel would move back to Melbourne, that this was not the place where she permanently wanted to live.
After 15 months, I made the decision to move out of the Keys and I secretly wanted to pack her up and make her a gypsy with me.

The night she tells me on the phone she is leaving the Keys, I am in some way relieved.
I can already hear it in her voice and imagine this new light in her eyes.
Her time had finally come for change and the beginning of something new.
I am taken back to this one image of her truck packed full of boxes and appliances when we were moving out of the old bakery into the new one. I now try to picture her pick up full of her own household items, bags of clothes, and all the tiny and beautiful pieces of her life.
As stationary and stable as her life appeared to me, I knew she was meant to move on.
I knew there was a bird in her soul singing out for a new life.
For the coming of a new era and the dawning of a new day that was breaking now.

We both have a love for mountains and the wildness of out west. The cold of Colorado and the pretty pink flowers on certain cacti.
When it comes time for us to die I think our souls will meet in the dry desert dust, blown together over the turquoise oceans and deep red canyons.
I think our birds will fly side by side, singing the song they learned so long ago.
The song they have been singing all along.
The one that made them leave.

Here’s to you Sweet Sage, to the prospect of a new journey and the making of a new life.
To the singing of a new song.
May we meet again someday and reflect on the time that brought us together.
And made me realize you are one of the best friends I will always have.