Spotlight! on Sarah Howle -Break The Chain

       I run through the rain with my hands insufficiently covering my hair until I can hop the stone steps that lead to the wooden porch.  A surfboard hangs to my left and the door directly before me leaks soft guitar licks and hair-raising whispers from the cracks.  I turn the doorknob and push with my shoulder to find a young crooner perched in a bench across the room with her legs crossed.  Upon my arrival her voice immediately stops and a smile spreads across her unsure lips as she introduces herself to my drenched face for the first time.  This is Sarah Howle, eighteen year old Virgo and aspiring star from a little country town in South Carolina called Hartsville.  But those are just her bio facts, what I want to see is her soul.  I tell her not to mind my presence as I slink to a bedded corner to eagerly await the ghostly tunes of her breath once more.  Sarah inhales and begins a song, hesitant at first, but then I see her angle her head downwards with her long hair partly covering her face.  This gives her just enough of a shield to remember herself as her eyes close and she begins to feel the words that are magically pouring from somewhere deep in her belly.  I close my own eyes and lay enchanted at the passion that I can clearly hear in her words.  I love that she doesn't try to sing the song exactly the way that Stevie Nicks did; instead she loves the lyrics and makes them her own, in her own key, in her own time, and she just blows me away.  I imagine that if her soul could slip from her body it would take the shape of a cat and howl its pain at the midnight moon.
      Sarah quoted some of the lyrics to me, things like, "slipping into the denseness of my loneliness," and "even if I found you you'd be so cold" and I knew that this young woman was special.  She remembers an agonizing juncture when she was just a little girl.  Both of her parents were drinking too much and little Sarah went through a time when she didn't quite feel safe.  That hidden pain grew into anxiety and depression that can only be relieved by crying her torment through the words that she sings.  Still hesitant of herself, she closes her eyes and imagines that she is standing alone in a wide open field at 2:15 in the morning.  There is no one around and the air has a chill that clings to her skin.  Within this fictional safe haven she is able to open her soul and pour her beautiful voice out for all to drink in.  Sarah was originally inspired by her maternal grandmother who used to sing gospel tunes on the television.  Her brothers were also catalysts on the road to finding her voice.  Sarah's older brother is a piano man who encourages her through his wisdom, and her younger brother heartens her with his pure soul.  "He was a blessing in disguise," she says of her three year old brother, Charlie.  "He was a surprise child and I realized that it wasn't just all about me.  He makes me want to do good and make the world a better place for him." 
       I had the most amazing time with this passionate young lady today.  Putting Sarah's physical merit aside, she is unmistakably beautiful through her intuition, loving passion, and ambitious strength.  She uses the only instrument that she can play to soothe and condition the hurt in her soul.  Her voice is a tool that she can carry with her wherever she goes and escape into its safe place, whether she's surrounded by hundreds of people or laying alone in her dark and soundless room with her mind wandering to the wide corners of her needs, desires, and dreams.
What's your escape?