The Heart of a Dancer

When I started on this necklace I had no idea in my head of what I wanted to work on. I began shaping the wire around the turquoise nuggets, then shaping more wire around that, and soon it looked like a heart. While I filled in the larger frame of the heart with tiny coral pebbles I began to think of people I knew a long time ago.

When I was younger, I used to dance. Every weekend I would be in the circle surrounded by people I cared about. Sometimes, I carried a fan in one hand with my shawl over my arm, and danced the traditional way. Other times, my shawl would be draped over my shoulders, like the wings of a butterfly, as I danced. And still, even when I did not have my regalia with me, I wore my shawl and danced anyway. As long as the drum played, I would dance. When I danced, my heart would fly.

So many years have passed since I was last able to dance. Through those years I have lost track of many of the people who surrounded me those days. The people who were as important to me as dancing was itself. The people who taught me so many things. People who knew that you cannot teach a child to live the right way without following the right path yourself. People who you knew that if they saw you stumble would not laugh turn their backs on you, but would give you their hand and help you up again. Never judging. Never hateful. Always there when you needed someone.

As this necklace took shape I began to wonder where everyone had gone to, so I looked up their names on the internet. Many of them, understandably, I could not find. Those I did find, I was only able to find because they are no longer with us.

As the years have gone by the old ones, the ones who taught so many of us what it is to really live, have slipped away, one by one. As I was reading their stories one thing remained clear. Their hearts always stayed strong.

This necklace is their story.

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