Revelation Song Phillips Craig & Dean האמת

Snowshoeing in a Sea of Pink

I've thought about acquiring my own pair of snowshoes for many years and in the last few years I've often thought about how much I like to be outside but just never make myself spend time there. A friend's invitation to the Vermont Romp to Stomp Breast Cancer Fundraiser brought the two desires to fruition. What a blast! First, it was cold! The day's highest temperature was 18 degrees. Fortunately, my friend brought a large bag of pink attire so we could add as many layers as we wanted. We were outrageously pink, as you can tell, but we fit in very well and were by no means the most eccentric. :) (Think very large bras worn on the outside of coats with bejeweled gloves, fake eyes, and false lashes sewn on the cups. Mmhmm. My friend's black and pink tutu was very modest compared to some of the other fluffy, hot pink, sequined skirts.) It was a hoot!
The sky was incredibly clear and blue and the snow was fresh, squeaky, and crunchy. As we were trudging along, my friend was making up an "Ode to Romp to Stomp" poem. If I wasn't concentrating so hard on staying ahead of the pack and keeping up with my Romp friends, I would have liked to contribute more to the poem. After the second small hill we climbed, the scarf and hat was peeled off and my coat was unzipped. It's amazing how warm you can get when snowshoeing even on such a cold day! The biggest challenge was my middle-aged chubby body being forced to plod along at a pace of two other middle-aged women who are used to weekly Zumba and bellydancing lessons. But, my oh my, how beautiful the sun was on the freshly fallen, sparkly snow. The sky was brilliant blue and clear. Ahhh.
We stopped briefly to fill up at one of the water stations and waited for the crowd to thin out before getting back on the trail. We got to a fork in the trail with a steep hill on the left and a level part on the right. It turned out the hill on the right was the way to go for the 3K. That was great news since there was no way I was going to be the one of the group to wimp out and go the 3K route. I decided to eat an energy bar at the 3K point of the 5K race to make my person keep going and off we went. A little more slowly.
We finished the race and listened to the awards ceremony. The very best part of the awards ceremony was the point at which they called all the breast cancer survivors to the front. There were over half a dozen women who stepped forward. I thought about the long, long journeys they had already been through. I wondered if there times during their treatments and healing when they were thinking about things like snowshoeing the Romp to Stomp to keep their eyes on the horizon and not on the challenges. I wondered if they thought they might not get there. But there they were. What a beautiful moment.
I look forward to buying pink winter things on sale for next year. I look forward to planning a before-the-Stomp pink pasta party with the other two women. I hope there will be many more survivors next year at the event, but many, many more women who were not diagnosed in the first place. Hope is a beautiful thing.