Betty Bolté

In 1995 I journeyed to Britain to study British authors. In particular, I chose to study Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's life and work. I was awarded a scholarship to help with the cost of the trip. In exchange, I was asked to write three essays about what I discovered. This essay, "Lost and Found," was published in a college newsletter, a local magazine called Indianapolis Woman, and selected for inclusion in the Midwest Writers Workshop Commemorative Sampler 1974-1998.

I’m glad I rediscovered my passions last summer, because I need them now more than
ever. My fingers itched to pick up my guitar and get lost in the music, but I couldn’t. My bone
scan awaited.

My life as businesswoman, college student, wife, and mother of two was busy. My
classes in 1995 required the usual: lectures; research; writing papers; reading and analyzing
textbooks. Preparing for a study trip to Great Britain in July meant more research, and wading
through the drudgery of the history of English literature. Plus writing for clients, getting kids to
school, selling and building a new house, and moving into an interim rental house two days
before leaving for England. It didn’t help that my husband Chris was also working and going to
graduate school. But busy still left me empty inside. What was missing?

During my stay in England with a group of teachers and English students from Manitoba
University and Indiana University, I watched others pursuing their special interests, and realized I
had ignored my own life’s passions. Just how it happened still amazes me.

The bouncy ride from London to Durham in the cramped minibus made us all even more
tired. Finally we found our way to University College in Durham, where we were greeted by
two gents who briefed us, with typical British accents, on our itinerary, then invited us to join
them at a reception for some teachers from the Czech Republic after dinner.

I groaned. More teachers griping about late homework and fractious parents. It took some
doing, but I was finally convinced (badgered) into going.

Champagne glasses brimming with golden bubbly were thrust into our hands as we
entered the large decorated banquet room. I fell in love with the Czech appetizers bursting with
spices and garlic, and sipped on Moravian wine all evening. Before long, a woman pulled out a
guitar, and Czech folk songs invaded my senses, mingling with the strong wine. I felt my body
come alive, my spirit take off. When the Czechs and Canadians started to sing “Puff the Magic
Dragon,” I gladly immersed myself in the party atmosphere.

My youth had been filled with music. Singing. Playing. Listening. Dancing.

When had it left me?

The answer came to me over the next few days as I looked back over the last 10 years.

First my mother became ill. Then I married, divorced, and remarried. Danielle was born. Mom died. Nicholas was born. We moved several times. I returned to college. It all seemed so
cut and dried.

Every day I watched my new friends pursue activities defining their passions. Alice’s
guitar lugged around Britain. Craig’s hedgehog souvenirs. Linda’s penchant for history. Anne’s
love of gardening. An awareness of life’s details ballooned inside me.

I had to make choices in my own life, and I had. I continued to write, but music was left
behind. Now what should I do to get it back?

Back in Durham we were invited to join a pickup band in the Miners Gala parade
Saturday morning. I energetically beat a tambourine through the teeming, snaking cobblestone
streets. The bands played, and people clapped and sang along with the raucous songs.

Finally our last day in Durham arrived, and we knew we had to say thanks and goodbye to
new friends. We planned a festive dinner, with sumptious food, wine, poetry, medieval music,
and singing. Alice sang “Memories” from Cats; Pam read a poem I had written for the occasion;
the Canadians sang a Canadian song in honor of our guests. Hearing Pam read my poem in public
was like receiving an Oscar. After the formal dinner, we wanted to keep the good times rolling so
we grabbed chairs, wine and the guitar and adjourned to the moonlit garden. We settled into our
familiar pattern: someone started singing, the guitar picked up the melody, and the rest joined in
on the chorus. While we never would win any awards for tonal splendor, if there was an award
for having fun, we’d have taken grand champion.

While sitting in this heady atmosphere, a full moon above, new friends surrounding me
like the fragrant flowers, I sang solo for the first time this trip. My need to sing burst free, not just
for myself while in the kitchen chopping onions, but with a group of friends in the evening.

What startled me most was that I had to travel across the ocean with people I had never
met to discover the one thing I had lost at home: my passion—not just my passion for music,
though that surprised me most, but my passion for living. I felt I had been getting by day by day,
meeting the needs of those around me while putting my own on hold. I knew then I could no
longer ignore my own desires and passions. Not after tasting what it was like to live again,
savoring each second and noticing each detail.

Passions help each of us to endure. My guitar and my writing are dear friends. I’ll need
them to get me through my fight with breast cancer, just as I’ll need my family and friends to
support me with conversation and loving touches. But my own intense need to write, to sing, to
create, will give me strength and courage.

God will help me to face the rest.