Edited to correct a source reference in September, thanks to a clarification by Andy A., Sarah's publicist.
Sarah Fimm sat with her band, manager, crew and friends in the shade at a quayside restaurant table full of drinks and food, mostly meatballs and pasta. Deckchairs dotted the paving close to the gangway down to Le Batofar, the converted lightship where her evening concert was to come below decks.
In the hot still air, the moored boat scarcely moved on the sluggish brown flow of the Seine, sunbathers idly listened to music practice on the upper deck, but the performance area was a dimly lit space with no seats, a stage at one end and a bar at the other.
She must be a lioness.
Now we've met, it's easy to see Sarah sitting in her New York apartment with a couple of cats on her lap, like cubs, poring over a song. 'Lioness' was the name Sarah gave a song on her first album 'Cocooned', released in 2000, and I can't think what else she is when I believe in those natural totems many cultures believe each of us.
 Her auburn mane almost brushed the keyboard when she came on stage with Pete Geraghty, her bass player, and drummer Jim Perry. With a greeting, little ceremony and total focus, they launched into 'Story of Us', one of my favourite songs on Sarah's latest and third album, 'Nexus'.
For now, the only places I know where you can buy all three of her records outside the United States are via Amazon US (that's a list link), Sarah Fimm's own site (thus CD Baby) and the iTMS.
Until that changes, if you're in the right parts of Europe and would like to see and hear one of the finest musical talents to emerge since the turn of the millennium, there are still plenty of opportunities. From Paris, Sarah goes on to Ireland and the UK, then back to the continent.
People who have read my strange tale of a first "meeting" with this 24-year-old poet, singer and pianist will appreciate that on greeting her in flesh and blood just a few weeks later and scarcely crediting my luck, the only place for this particular VoW has to be in the orchard.
This, after all, is where I keep the magic.
Sarah's very special. She gave a great show, but I doubt she'll mind my saying it can't have been one of her best since she was tired and I was glad to see the band gets a night's break before Dublin.
It probably wasn't very clever to introduce myself as "that lunatic" who has swapped mail with her because Sarah asked "Are you really a lunatic?" and I said: "Well, if I am I guess that makes two of us!"
Fortunately I finally found some chocolate afterwards and Sarah stared fascinated as heaven knows what else came out of my long-suffering shoulder-bag to let me get at it.
That's the least you can do for somebody when you're convinced you really did jump space and time to visit their mind, especially when you know a bit about their cravings.
Enough of the weird stuff, though. I'll never find the words for what happened after I stumbled on 'Nexus' at the iTMS and it gradually sunk in. Gail Worley's bio of Sarah, published by Andy Adelewitz, who works for a New York booking agency, says:
"Nexus is a riveting collection of 15 indispensable musical journeys that explore various themes of connection. 'The Nexus idea is all about the journey, the connections you encounter while on the journey, and everything that goes on in between,' Sarah explains. 'I was reading Mark Buchanan's book Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks*. And I got into the whole "six-degrees" theory**. I think that if people could see how they're connected to everything, then they wouldn't have to feel so alone, and maybe we wouldn't have all these other problems. I need to keep my message optimistic,' she emphasizes" ('Little Big Man').
Sarah's into science, big time, like me. It's true that several modern theories helped me have an inkling of understanding how our minds connected, but I've stopped speculating since I logged a little about these experiences elsewhere.
Any ideas have given way to something deeper, a direct awareness of a reality our five senses simply can't handle. And yet somehow we know. Some believe me, others have called it "baloney" and a few say: "You've got religion!" I wouldn't go that far and have said I'd rather simply enjoy the music at work in us once we know it's there.
I've got lots of optimism and a renewed faith in human nature, despite the wicked ways some people have. This is partly Sarah's become the latest of the people I consider extra-special, the kind who turn up just when you need them most in your life.
At first, as I explored her 'Nexus' and then the two previous studio albums she's made, it was occasionally scary to become so close to a woman born a quarter of a century after me, in Connecticut, who seemed to know me inside out, just as I found it easy to understand her every word.
So if you want more distanced writing about her music, check out what other people have said. You'll find they have a hard time classifying her, because each album has explored new ground.
She's been called a rock singer, a spacy keyboards player, electronica, punk even, new age, and a mystic.
Reading all the reviewers keen to tell me who Sarah sounds like brought about the moment when I decided to go back to the ways I used to write about music for a living, long before my Africa days. For a while, I collected those endless comparisons planning to publish a few and show how absurd they are, but what's the point?
Asked herself about the musicians who've influenced her, she includes Leonard Cohen and Bach.
 Christa L. Titus described Sarah's 'A Perfect Dream' as:
"a diamond buried deep in the indie underground: a brilliant and durable gem worth mining that no doubt will increase in value. Likewise, Fimm's new 'Nexus' is another rare jewel. Whereas the songs from 'Dream' were very separate entities, the 15 cuts winding through 'Nexus' transition into each other almost seamlessly, creating a chilled-out dimension, one that is vast and colored with celestial imagery" ('Billboard').
Far from "chilled-out", that "dimension" is one I've called the multi-verse in acknowledgement of how little we really know. In a place, where music, mind, energy and matter seem to interact and we get stuck for words, Sarah's found wisdom, just as many have before her.
She's an idealist and unashamed of her dreams. This has been immensely encouraging to me, finding such empathy with somebody who gives voice and reassurance to many of my own. I don't doubt she does the same for others: people are the most important thing in her life.
For 'A Perfect Dream' and 'Cocooned' especially, Sarah's written some tough, even biting songs about a very real world. One of her greatest gifts is to look behind the veils of illusion and go sometimes so deep into pain we've all experienced that she can lift us out of it.
I'm not for an instant saying she's the finest poet-singer around. On the contrary, the more VoWs I hear, the greater my admiration for many of them, but I have an affinity with Sarah that makes any notion of "better" or "worse" more absurd than ever since she reminds me to respect differences and value the unique qualities of other people.
Peter Murphy, who she's touring with right now, I never heard last night in the end, though I enjoy what he does. Some other time.
Sarah's studio albums are very accomplished, without overdoing the technical wizardry in production, but it was good to hear a selection of songs mainly from the new one performed "raw" and straight, with a couple of fine breaks for the solos special to live concerts.
No fireworks, just right, I found I'd listened to enough music.
Most people there had come for Peter and his reputation, so I soon gave up a comfortable corner for the centre of the floor, well away from the talkers. In the middle, people were really listening, enthralled.
That wasn't all. Next time I go to Le Batofar -- I will because it's a relaxed, friendly place with an interesting and varied programme -- I'll know the prettiest women don't stand around the walls!
Once Sarah had finished with a very low bow and a graceful namaste, she and the fellers were out of there. As she said later, it was hot on stage. I hung around long enough to overhear what people had made of her, already pretty clear from the applause, then went out for a proper chat.
I talked more to Pete than the others, because he's a nice guy and gave me the guff on how he and Sarah and Jim got together as students at Boston's Berklee College of Music, which is a good place for people ready to open their musical minds wide.
I found somewhere that Sarah did a "world music" course, which is no surprise. A word about Aimee Mann's concert last weekend got Pete, who's also got several skills, telling me a story about doing her lighting once, when she pulled the same stunt I saw and got some poor sod of a friend on stage when he wasn't expecting it.
Pete told me many bass players don't like being in bands and prefer gigs, but he wasn't one of them and prefers "bonding". The three have been together from the start, though Sarah initially had a bigger band, and has herself explained they really started working as a team on the second album..
Rather than bother her with it, I asked Pete where he thought her songs come from, since I'd been amused by some references to this in her journal of the "I feel a song coming on" sort. We all know such feelings, but they usually mean hard work ahead.
"She has a whole album in her head before it happens," Pete said, but the individual songs are spontaneous.
"This tour seemed very last minute," I suggested.
"It was," Pete agreed. Murphy had said he'd like them to come to Europe during the US tour, but when he made good on it soon before leaving for Sarah's band to get their act together was "quite a hassle". Yet here they were.
Before the last tour, Siren Song Magazine wanted to know if Sarah ever found the uphill struggle too much?
"Nope," she said. "But there have been times when I have contemplated taking off my clothes and running through Times Square screaming, 'Please buy our fucking music so we can go on tour and I will show you my tits!' Needless to say, I realized just in time that that wasn't such a good idea."
Maybe, maybe not, but she had a pretty blouse and long skirt on when I slid round to sit next to her: "Don't worry, love, I don't want to interview you."
"Did you enjoy it?"
"I loved it," I said. "It was brilliant, I love all your stuff."
We relaxed into a chat and I completely forgot to give her a kiss!
Sarah proved to be one of those women who listens a lot more than they talk, so I hope she liked what I told her, which was complimentary and I meant every word of it.
.
She did talk about some of the things she's learned and seemed pleased when I said 'Be Like Water' -- it sent shivers down my spine earlier when they played the opening track on 'A Perfect Dream' -- had become a "mantra for me".
She said that was one of the most important things she'd ever learned.
The rest was just a sharing of ideas. I won't log it any more more than I would chats with any other friend. Sarah explained that anything she thinks important goes into her online journal anyway.
It does. I congratulated her on keeping it tight, less long-winded than mine. To be honest, though I said how she'd shown me that wisdom has nothing to do with age, Sarah listened so intently to what I told her she's probably still taking some of it in -- as I am -- because she does have a melancholy side, that was evident, and in formal interviews she's said things about tough times I didn't want to ask.
One of the most remarkable things about 'Cocooned' -- if age does come into it -- is that Sarah wrote the songs on that debut album between the ages of 14 and 17! So she tells Gail Worley, who interviewed her early this year with the kind of sensitivity only too few music critics can manage. That's at 'WomanRock' ... and also at Ink 19.
'Cocooned' is such a good album many young singers would aspire to that kind of quality of music, lyrics and sheer honesty much later in their careers than out of their teens.
Pete told me about 'Sexual Animals' done on stage. It's scarcely The Peaches, but it sure is sex ... and I find it very sexy because listening to a woman asking a man to do a particular something for her like Sarah does turns me on. The orgasm, he said, was sometimes replaced by music. Sometimes...
Two other songs, particularly 'Red Paper Bag', will go into the "tough love" iMix I'll soon be publishing, along with a few others, on the iTMS, because when you feel fucked up in a love affair, singers who can really share that with you are much more help than friends who tell you "You'll get over it."
What Sarah says about these things on that album and others is no invitation to wallow in your woes, but it's reassuring to know that it's okay to hurt and you're not alone.
 I wonder how much Sarah believed me when I got the chance to say that for all that darkness people hear in the places she goes in some of her songs, she's very far from "fucked up" herself, despite the review snippet sitting on her site and I hear a great sense of humour. She said "Thank you" and I hope she did believe me, because there's too much of the "dark angel" writing about her around.
I'm reminded of Dorothy Parker again: "It's not the tragedies that kill us, it's the messes."
It's one thing to face up to and know your darkness, but quite another to take that part of you and turn it into beauty. "There's no point in negative bantering," Sarah told Gail Worley. "Life should be honored and appreciated, because our time here is really special."
In that interview with Gail, she talks about the scientific interest:
"I've always had a fascination with space and time and how we're all relative to it. That kind of thinking was really instrumental in A Perfect Dream because I had always been thinking about it, but people so often dismiss those things because they don't understand them. The easiest thing to do when you don't understand something is to dismiss it as unimportant. I wasn't ready to accept that. I wasn't ready to give up my life and my wonder of the Universe just because people seemed to tell me it was crazy to even care" (Ink 19).
Well, on that, I couldn't agree more.
But in the past year, I've come to see no point in force-feeding people with the science.
Because Sarah's right and it doesn't take science to know this:
"I think that if people could see how they're connected to everything, then they wouldn't have to feel so alone."
______________
* Here's an Amazon US link to Buchanan's book, also out in paperback, where you can take a look inside.
** "Six degrees of separation is the theory that anyone on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries," says the Wikipedia.
11:59:10 PM link 
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