Chapter Twenty One

"We always live in the present when events seem urgent, inevitable, unmovable, but life is not a sequence but a tapestry, only to be understood as a whole. One's goal in life, one's talent, is to weave a beautiful, understandable pattern, not a random collection of clumsy stitches meant only to cover the fabric."

"Imagine if you will that a master weaver is asked to create his or her art without a pattern or a color scheme, making do with what he or she is handed gradually over time. What skill is required to weave wonders under these circumstances, and how valuable the end result!"

 

"Sarah, are you happy?" Sister Therese asked, all of a sudden.

The question took Sarah by surprise, she didn't think that anybody in the group was guided by anything other than faith and duty. Come to think of it their happiness was probably wrapped in the faith part, but she didn't think one of the sisters would consider it separately.

She didn't know how to answer the question, she had been so engulfed in her constant and all consuming activities that she didn't have time to assess her emotional state.

They woke up at the equivalent of six in the morning and worked solidly through the evening for about sixteen hours at which point they were so tired that they barely made it to their beds. After the first six years when the schedule seemed to relax a little bit, the dutiful Sarah filled it back up with the herbalist shop, medical research and biotechnology studies. She loved working with herbs, it reminded her of her childhood, the scents, the colors, the peaceful surroundings and the ever present cats.

She was almost thirty-three now, she passed the thirty year mark without making note of it, without feeling any different in the strange two sunned days of Terra Two. The childhood softness of her features had hardened a bit, her face looked more chiseled and a couple of thin lines showed at the corner of her eyes when she smiled. Other than that she was still the Sarah they all knew and since they saw her every day they didn't get to notice the slight changes.

Was she happy? What a strange question to ask, Sarah thought. She never had a clear plan for her life, she let it take her where it led. Other people knew exactly at the age of fifteen what they were going to do, whom they were going to marry, how many kids they were going to have and what their home was going to look like. Sarah thought that if she ever had plans as clear cut as those she would have been disappointed for sure, miss one of the details and the plan is not perfect anymore. She liked perfect, that was one of the little things that both made her excel at her work and drove the sisters nuts. "What was the point of making something flawed?" she thought.

She looked at herself standing tall dressed in the tan work overalls. What a hideous color, she thought, of all the colors of the rainbow they chose something that looked like dirt. What, they were afraid aliens were going to see them from up high and attack? A robin egg's blue or a clear turquoise would have been so much better, to draw out her eyes and compliment her fiery hair.

Sarah was a beautiful woman, quality she never treasured for some unknown reason, and she had caught the eye of several guys from the logistics team but she never pursued a relationship and continued her path through life in the company of the sisters who by default were all single.

She would have liked to have children, she often imagined the giggle of little ones chasing each other around the counters in the lab, playing with the cats and knocking over bottles of aromatic oils. Their little camp was expanding with real homes for everyone and lush green gardens and social spaces, it wasn't like she was going to bring children into a desert world.

Her parents found the idea revolting in every one of its aspects, from who was going to take care of the kids to who was going to educate them, and the sisters didn't care one way or the other. In the absence of a better half though, the issue remained open and was not often pondered upon.

Was she happy? the question resurfaced, taking way too much time to answer. She thought about what her alternate life would have been, probably a professor position at one of the top universities, maybe she could have been on the base team back on Earth supporting this mission. She thought how sad she would have been to watch the images of Terra Two from afar, never being able to experience them first hand. Maybe she would have visited though, they got many visiting scientists and tourists now. The thought of seeing her brainchild at the age of ten and raised by someone else made her heart ache. She knew every spec of dirt, every gust of wind, she felt like she planted every blade of grass herself.

She looked around and her eyes rested on the emerald green soy bean fields shining in the suns behind the herbalist studio and she let her gaze linger on the purple bean tree, almost over-shadowed by the other tall trees in the orchard. The suns set suddenly, melting in the raspberry chocolate sky and a myriad of artificial stars appeared. The sisters were winding up quietly in the field preparing to turn in for the night.

Was she happy? the question followed, relentless, bouncing against her thoughts, tangled in her fire colored hair that caught the last rays of light and shone like a candle.

"I guess so", she said aloud and smiled.