One of the best parts of the holiday season is reuniting with old friends who have managed to make a life long impression on who I am today. Friends like Sarah Amspacher. Between the ages of 15 and 18, I spent every waking moment possible with Sarah. And these were particularly formative years. We donned overalls, hemp jewelry, hairy legs and not a stitch of makeup. And we thought we were so cool. We kind of were.

I met up with Sarah for lunch last week and she gave me a time capsule of snap shots from over a decade ago. I instantly became nostalgic with memories of who I was - becoming vegetarian, going on long walks barefoot, fretting over whether or not I'd ever start my period, eating free meals at The Diner, becoming an Ashtanga yoga addict, driving around in my 1973 yellow VW bug and Sarah's boxy Volvo, listening to Chainsaw Kittens tapes on repeat and burning Nag Champa. Sarah and I were each other's number one fans. She was (and still is) brave, smart, creative and completely inspiring to me. We gave each other courage to power through the shit-hole that can be teenagerdome.

At 18 years old, Sarah went on to study sustainable agriculture at Evergreen in Olympia, Washington. I stayed behind to study art at the University of Oklahoma. We said our goodbyes and snapped these photos as Sarah's dad loaded up his big red truck to take her out of the Heartland and into the Pacific Northwest. Along our separate paths we slowly but surely retired our overalls and hemp jewelry. Sarah's now saving the world and finding ways to make renewable energy a reality (when she's not kayaking along coast lines and being attacked by rabid cougars - no, really). And I'm a working artist and have exchanged my '73 yellow Volkswagen Beetle for a Turbo GTI with a sunroof. It's clear that we've grown quite a bit since then - but the seeds we planted as kids hold firm root on who we are today.

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• friends
• kathleen
• nostalgia


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