Dancing in the Dust Devil

Dancing in the Dust Devil

Today I danced in a dust devil. My husband and I were back on our property where our new house is being built, and when we looked out through the framing where French doors will soon be we saw all these leaves, dirt, and dried grasses being whipped into a cyclone by the wind. As the wind picked up speed and even more debris, the cyclone grew in height until it was almost 40 feet tall.

“Would it mess up if I ran into it?” I asked Randy.

He shook his head. “No, go on out there. It’ll probably stop soon.”

So I took off running through our future front door. I sprinted into the middle of our field and stood in the dust devil, but with all that wild tangle of multi-colored leaves, grass, and burrs swirling around me, somehow just standing there wasn’t enough. I began to twirl and to fling out my arms. Burrs and pieces of grass were sticking to my clothes and filling my mouth and hair, but it was worth it; to feel that wild rush of wind, to see the power of it as it picked up and set down things that were only lying inert before.

Last weekend my husband and I celebrated our second anniversary at Cumberland Falls in Kentucky. Since we never watch TV at home, we decided to treat ourselves by being couch potatoes in our hotel room. But there wasn’t much on. When the remote landed on some ’70s music video, and I heard the lyrical strains of “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas I cried, “Wait! This’s one of my favorites!”

Randy, dear heart that he is, obeyed my request, and for three whole minutes we sat there on the hotel’s outrageously tacky bedcover, watching these Geico cavemen-looking guys wearing ruffled suits with bowties playing their violins and singing, “All we are is dust in the wind; all we are is dust in the wind.”

The combination of today’s dancing in a dust devil and last week’s “Dust in the Wind” song has got me thinking (a scary concept in itself, I know): Each one of us harbours dreams in our hearts. Whether it be property, publication, money, fame, relationships, we are perpetually striving toward a goal of some kind. If we are not careful, we can become so caught up in this mad swirl of dust and dreams, rather than just enjoying the dance of the journey, we will try — just like those burrs — to latch ourselves onto people bigger than us in fame, money, publication, property, ect., so they might carry us upward.

This week — and for the rest of my life, really — I want to challenge myself to get to know the people composing this mad, desperately beautiful dust devil of life. I want to encourage them in their dreams even though the odds remain that not all of us will reach them. And I believe the key to this is letting people know that you hear them, that you see them; that their dreams, their desires, the very essence of who they are as individuals, means more to you than just a fellow, passing speck of dust in life’s wind.

Picture can be found here.