This was my first real view of Sarah, Samuel, and their environment. Her house was furnished with Indian-­print cloths as wall hangings, window covers, bedspreads—one even billowed down from the ceil­ing. The brightly patterned cloths comprised her wardrobe as well. She wrapped them around her body and her short dark hair in comfortable fashion. The effect was slightly claustrophobic, but colorful and lively. Pillows of all sizes and descriptions were scat­tered about the carpeted floor and piled into mounds in the corner. Shelves of raw wood were separated by bricks; these shelves were filled with books on dance, movement, therapy, and mysticism. In one corner of the small living room was a mattress, neatly covered with a flowered fabric.

Sarah looked like an exotic mix of nationalities. I watched her move about her tiny kitchen as she brewed tea for us. She propped me up against the wall, helped me get comfortable; Samuel sat on the mattress and quietly watched us. His eyes were the same dark color as hers.

Sarah unwound her sarong to reveal a yellow leotard and tights. She sat on the carpeting in the middle of the room and began stretching exercises. I’d never seen anything so beautiful or fascinating in my life.

As she worked, she talked. She was thirty-­four, taught dance in the high school, movement in the preschool, and spent two afternoons a week with the elderly in town, giving them gentle exercises to keep the ravages of age to a minimum. On Saturdays she helped in the physical-­therapy clinic.

The local high school had put on a dance exhibi­tion four years earlier and Sarah’s classes had danced, and so had Sarah. She danced with an invited guest: a handsome boy from San Francisco, who had come to dance and left behind a child growing in her womb.

“It was quite a scandal,” Sarah laughed as she lowered her throat to one knee, fingers gracefully holding one foot.

She spoke of raising a son, of teaching high­ school girls; with sidelong glances at my reactions, spoke of her love of life and the freedom of commit­ment to one’s own beliefs.

I could follow her for only moments at a time, and then my mind would sprint away, chasing a thought or an idea, and upon returning, the topic would be different and I would have to pretend I was following, until I caught up and she said something else that sent me running after a new concept.

It was exhausting work. I slumped in the corner, sick, still feverish, weak and unhappy, while in front of me a healthy, happy, well-­adjusted woman exer­cised with a flushed face and a feminine sheen of perspiration covering her face and chest. She stopped and looked at me.

“Drink your tea,” she said. “It will help you heal.”