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On the road again:
Greetings from Fort Myers, Florida
In my previous blog, I wrote about contra dancing. Today’s main story features the passionate writing of one particular contra dance musician.
But first …
Some quick updates on the travels of Cyndy and Robert.
We’ve been to two contra dance weekends in Daytona Beach and Gulfport, Florida, where we danced 14 hours Friday night through Sunday afternoon. Cyndy also danced a third weekend in Tennessee.
Plus, we’ve taken several lessons in West Coast swing, a dance form that is much more challenging than contra. Really, Florida is a dancing state with social dance opportunities just about every night of the week.
On Wednesday, we visited the Ringling circus museum in Sarasota, a trip into the marvelous magnificence of “the greatest show on earth.”
Thursday, we went kayaking in the Everglades from late afternoon until after dark, viewing tri-color herons, osprey, egrets, wood storks, and other birds while paddling carefully past watchful eyes of large predatory alligators.
Yesterday, we strolled the beaches and collected sea shells on Sanibel and Captiva islands, renowned as the number-one best shelling beaches in the world.
Cyndy’s collection of online photos
now includes images of an amazing model circus layout, stunning photos from the Everglades, especially at sunset, and gorgeous shells that now populate her growing collection.
Today's Story
I commented that CDH is a great experience because of the strong sense of community among the dancers.
This point is eminently evident in the powerful story below by Betsy Richards, a contra dancer and musician from Idaho.
Betsy is in her mid-20s. She fiddles and sings with the
contra band In-Tent-City
(Intensity) that performed at CDH in 2018. Three of her brothers comprised the rest of the band.
They are four of 14 siblings who literally lived through an Idaho winter in tents while constructing their family home in the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Mountains.
From the stage at CDH, Betsy mentioned that the band would not return to CDH in 2019 because she was moving to Michigan to start a new career.
However, she confided, there was one problem that had suddenly arisen … she had lost her housing and didn’t know where she was going to live.
Cyndy and I talked with her later and queried her new career. “Learning midwifery.” When are you moving? “Two weeks from now.” To what part of Michigan? “Battle Creek.” We replied, “That’s 30 minutes from where we live in Kalamazoo. Maybe we can help.”
Via the Internet, I put out the word to my wide network of friends. Four people responded with housing offers.
So, Betsy lived at our apartment for her first three weeks in Michigan: one week while we were there with her and then two weeks while we traveled on a Caribbean vacation.
By the time we returned, she had moved to the home of a friend where she house-sat. Then, she took up permanent residence in the home of the woman who was her midwifery mentor.
With a petite frame, dark hair and an ever-present smile, Betsy is a beautiful soul who bubbles with vibrant, youthful energy.
Over meals, she related her hands-on joy of helping to bring a new life into the world.
But the immensity of her compassionate heart is most evident in the following story that she posted to her Internet friends in December.
She titled it:
“A moment and then …”
It’s too quiet. Far too quiet.
I watch the silent screen. Hoping, praying, that perhaps there is a machine malfunction, that my ears aren’t working. Anything but the silent awful reality. Anything.
And still I watch the unmoving figure on the ultrasound screen and refuse to register what the silence is saying.
Softly spoken words break the silence. But the words are wrong. They are all wrong. They speak the unspeakable. How can they be true? Maybe silence was better.
Yet I still cannot tear my eyes away. Hoping to see movement. Any sign of life. Any hope.
All is still.
Only the muffled sob tells the tale of two hearts broken by the weight of... of what? Crushing, suffocating silence.
A silence drowning out my silent scream. A silence crippling my writhing heart. Aching for the mother that will never hear that child’s first cry, or watch it grow from baby to toddler to youth to adult. Watching, loving as only a mother can.
That dream is dead. Dead. Leaving debris of shattered hopes and dreams in its wake.
Then in the very silence I hear something else... I hear... I hear what? Love?
Yes, a story of love. Love made. Love lost. Love at its most raw. A love I do not understand. Yet love nonetheless. How can that be?
Love, the thrilling, healing, power that gives life to all it touches.
How can the same force be here in this shattered room? Does it not know the power of grief? Can it not sense the pain and agony of a broken heart?
I can almost hear the silence mock love as it sweeps through the room. How stupid love is to think it can comfort the aching heart.
Look what has come of trusting love. Pain. Loss. Grief. Dare to trust love again if you can.
The mocking grows to a wailing shriek and then all falls still once more. But a different kind of still. A tired kind of still.
And in that stillness I hear the words of One who lived long ago. One who spoke of love amidst grief and pain. One who knew death yet promised life. One who knew.
Maybe it was He who stood with us in that room. Could it be? And then I knew.
He died that all might live. He is deeper than the pain. He is deeper than the grief. He has gone below it all so that we need not sink under the weight of our loss.
His peace is greater than the storm. He knows and He understands.
I wanted to bury my head in His chest and weep. Weep for the loss. Weep for the pain of the days to come for that mother who has to face the reality of carrying and bearing a child whose little life has already slipped beyond the veil.
But He knows and He holds her in His mighty arm. For in His hands He bears the marks of the price He has paid to hold us all.
And for now, I sit in His silence and weep.
-- 30 --
Click here to see some of the photos that Cyndy has taken on our journey.
Thanks for reading my stories.
God blesses everyone ... no exceptions.
Robert (Bob) Weir
