sama

It's nothing special and yet it is, all the same. A smile and the way shadows dance in a flashlight beam, the ghost of a promise, too much to drink and the chill 2 a.m. brings. Sam is all of those and none at the same time, an enigma, if we want to be cliche, twisting just out of reach like quicksilver.

She tries too hard, a lot of the time; pushes past boundaries and skirts along the edge of proper behaviour. She forgets herself a lot, forgets her standing in and among other people, and wraps herself up in the warmth of people she doesn't even know. She likes to be the center of attention and yet clambers to get away from it when it gets to be too much. Stage fright hums just below the surface and it'll get her if she's not well prepared. It would be nice to be smarter, to be brighter and braver and to know the right way to respond to and approach everything, but Sam isn't and she doesn't. She trips over words, makes advances and then retreats, laughs and hides her face in her hands because it was probably the most inappropriate time ever to let something like that slip. Sam's the type to spend a funeral laughing because the anxiety gets her worked up and she doesn't know how to handle the emotion like a real adult. She pretends when she can and guesses the rest of the time.

The farm was home for too many years and Sam's tried her best to put those all behind her. The smell of it seems to have settled into her hair and her skin and it gets kicked up from time to time, flashing memories just outside of her awareness when she pulls an old sweater out of the back of the closet. It's the smell of cattle and wood smoke, of freshly cut wheat and canola and the fields burning in the fall. It's a life she left far, far behind and one she doesn't miss in the slightest, except on those cold, lonely nights where distance becomes measurable in heartbeats and pain.

She got off the farm as soon as she could and settled herself in Calgary at seventeen. Her parents were (and still are) fairly well off and it wasn't without their help that she enrolled at the University of Calgary for a psych degree she doesn't know what to do with. She made a few friends and even more mistakes, let her heart lead the charge and regretted it desperately when trying to swallow the consequences. Calgary slowly closed in around her as the years rumbled past and it all became too familiar: too many faces and people she knew and the anonymity she'd been greeted with had dulled into overwhelming familiarity. It was the same people with the same problems in the same places every time she turned around.

Boredom got her to New York. Student loans, scholarships, her savings, a student visa, and her parents made it something palpable. She transferred credits and finished up her last year at NYU and immediately enrolled to start her graduate degree in behavioural studies the next fall semester. She's had flings and friends and love and hate fall in line in those spaces in between and yet nothing really worthy of note. She met some guys who knew some other guys who needed someone to sing for their band and Sam realized she's got a skill that's applicable outside of the shower stall. She hates the attention but the guys won't let her pull a Maynard and perform as a silhouette at the back of the stage, cowboy hat askew and legs akimbo. She couldn't pull it off even if she wanted to, so she settles with hiding her eyes and pretends like the audience isn't watching her.

She spent her first year of grad school on research and studying. The second year found her applying for a job with the school and she got assigned to work as a teaching assistant for a gender and sexuality class. Add that to the part time job she landed herself working at a pharmacy and she's got things figured out for the time being. It's only a matter of time before the city creeps in on her, but she can still disappear into a mass of people and not know a single one of them. It works for now.

RANDOM FACTS:
✘ naturally redheaded but enhances it with dye
✘ took eleven years of cello lessons and can perform at an advanced level
✘ sings as part of a small, no-name band along the vein of belle and the bone people that randomly performs. sam sings but will not remove her sunglasses on stage
✘ books tattoo appointments based on her moods, especially the sadder ones. some of the bigger pieces result from awful bouts of homesickness
✘ tends to be fairly frugal but will spend way too much money on sheets and bedding. she slept for a few months on a futon mattress on the floor when she first got to the city and then splurged and bought a decent mattress/boxspring set that's the love of her life