SOUND OF SILENCE

The quest for a little peace and quiet

Light filled the dark night deep in the northern Minnesota countryside, the moon brightening the landscape and the stars as twinkly as they could be.

Lying on my back, a feeble breeze grazing my forehead just enough to keep the bugs and sweat at bay, my mind wandered here and there and nowhere at all. It was a night in the early stages of summer back at a time when I had more energy than direction, and I was consumed with worry about where I was going and how I would get there.

So there I was, lying on my back outside in a quiet place I found to help sort through the random thoughts that skittered across my mind.

I dreaded summer back then because school work was far easier than farm work. My greatest dream was to turn 16 and emancipate myself from my parents’ pseudo-indentured servitude to earn minimum wage sacking groceries and lining shelves. That would be the life, or so I fantasized.

On this summer night after a stifling, dirty day baling hay, I had just enough energy to lie outside and wonder how I would engineer my great escape. Would I be beckoned by an Ivy League school unable to continue without my noble presence? Would my baseball skills catch the eye of a professional scout and whisk me to faraway Paducah or Toledo or Cape Cod to launch a minor league career? Or would I simply tire of farm work one day and leave on a dusty gravel road in my trusty red Javelin with floorboards somehow rusted clear through, providing natural ventilation for my feet?

There has always been something energizing about mindless thought in those qui- et places that helps generate brainpower inaccessible in helter-skelter, everyday situations. Places like those highlighted in this month’s cover story help stoke our ability to seem greater than we are, even if only to ourselves and only for a little while, making the empty solitude of a perfect quiet place something to cherish and protect.

There are plenty of places near all of us that are quiet, and yet not all of them are truly quiet places, with the defining difference mostly a matter of opinion. A place can be quiet and yet unfulfilling for me,

DISTRIBUTION PH/214.560.4203

ADVERTISING PH/214.560.4203 office administrator: JUDY LILES

214.560.4203 / jliles@advocatemag.com display sales manager: BRIAN BEAVERS

214.560.4201 / bbeavers@advocatemag.com senior advertising consultant: AMY DURANT

214.560.4205 / adurant@advocatemag.com senior advertising consultant: KRISTY GACONNIER

214.264.5887 / kgaconnier@advocatemag.com advertising consultants

SALLY ACKERMAN

214.560.4202 / sackerman@advocatemag.com

CATHERINE PATE

214.292.0494 / cpate@advocatemag.com

NORA JONES

214.292.0962 / njones@advocatemag.com

FRANK McCLENDON

214.560.4215 / fmcclendon@advocatemag.com

GREG KINNEY

214.292.0485 / gkinney@advocatemag.com

EMILY WILLIAMS

469.916.7864 / ewilliams@advocatemag.com

MICHELE PAULDA

214.292.2053 / mpaulda@advocatemag.com classified manager: PRIO BERGER

214.560.4211 / pberger@advocatemag.com director of digital marketing: MICHELLE MEALS

214.635.2120 / mmeals@advocatemag.com

EDITORIAL PH/ 214.292.2053 publisher: CHRISTINA HUGHES BABB

214.560.4204 / chughes@advocatemag.com senior editor: EMILY TOMAN

214.560.4200 / etoman@advocatemag.com editors:

RACHEL STONE

214.292.0490 / rstone@advocatemag.com

BRITTANY NUNN

214.635.2122 / bnunn@advocatemag.com senior art director: JYNNETTE NEAL 214.560.4206 / jneal@advocatemag.com uncomfortable or unwelcoming through no fault of its own, while offering you a perfect space for quiet reflection. In a city with growing density and dwindling green space, that is an especially good thing, because if all of us found only the same few quiet places acceptable for reflection, those places soon would be overrun and not special for anyone anymore. designer: KATHRYN ROCHA

I’m fortunate that my quiet place is portable, existing primarily in some part of my brain that seems resistant to erasure or reformatting, offering a throwback to the days when dreams were my pilot instead of my taskmaster, when moonlight alone was enough to light the way through the dark, and when I had plenty of time to simply wonder away the night.

Rick Wamre is president of Advocate Media. Let him know how we are doing by writing to 6301 Gaston, Suite 820, Dallas 75214; or email rwamre@advocatemag.com.

214.292.0493 / krocha@advocatemag.com designers: LARRY OLIVER, LISA DUDLEY contributing editors: KERI MITCHELL, SALLY WAMRE contributors: GAYLA BROOKS, SEAN CHAFFIN, ANGELA HUNT

GEORGE MASON, BLAIR MONIE, ELLEN RAFF, PAM HARRIS, KRISTEN MASSAD, WHITNEY THOMPSON photo editor: DANNY FULGENCIO

214.635.2121 / danny@advocatemag.com photographers: MARK DAVIS, ELLIOTT MUÑOZ, KIM LEESON, DAVID LEESON, JENNIFER SHERTZER copy editor: LARRA KEEL intern: JAMES COREAS

Technologically Advanced Heart and Vascular Surgery

At Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, we offer innovative and advanced care for your heart. As a Cycle IV Chest Pain Center, our patients receive high-level comprehensive cardiovascular care. We introduced Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement surgery, and we now offer minimally invasive blood vessel and valve procedures. So if you ever have a heart issue and need us, we won’t miss a beat. Ask your doctor to have your heart procedure done at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.

These women have balls

Neighborhood fitness group bonds over life’s struggles and community activism

A group of middle-aged women jog together through the streets around W.T. White High School — it’s a typical scene in our neighborhood, but these are Women with Balls.

“We are keenly aware that life takes courage, persistence and defiance it takes ‘balls,’ ” says the group’s leader, Patsy Shropshire.

The name is a play on their use of stability balls. The fitness group comprises about 20 neighborhood women who meet several times a week for pre-dawn workouts, emotional support and laughter.

“On some workout days, we laugh more before 9 a.m. than most people do in an entire day,” Shropshire says.

Between “LSD Day” (long, slow distance training) and the annual “Shot Party” (a social event where members receive their flu shots), these women embrace their quirky sense of humor — because amid difficult transitions and life-threatening illnesses, they have to. All of the women have survived serious medical issues such as cancer and heart disease as well as personal struggles like divorce and empty-nest syndrome.

“If you’re not laughing, you’re crying,” jokes Kathy Wesley, a longtime member of the group.

Most of the women knew of each other through various social circles. After joining WWB, acquaintances became close friends. Jodi Kueker is an 11-year breast cancer survivor, and when fellow group member Dianne Doyle received the same diagnosis, Kueker accompanied her on doctor visits to take detailed notes — an often overwhelming task for first-time patients.

“We all take care of each other,” Kueker says.

The supportive nature of WWB extends to the community. Every year the group hosts a fun run and breakfast for a worthy cause. In

April, they raised more than $3,000 to help beautify the W.T. White track, improving the facility for students while making it more accessible to the neighborhood.

WWB is no ragtag group of workout buddies. Shropshire has a clinical doctorate in physical therapy and built the specialized program around her members’ needs — women in their 40s, 50s and 60s. The group meets in her garage, which she converted into a gym, complete with free weights, stability balls, yoga gear, a posture chart and human anatomy models. Last year Shropshire won the American Physical Therapy Association’s “Fit After 50” challenge.

“You deal with a lot of things in life,” she says. “It helps to have exercise in your life.”

Kueker says that staying fit and aging well are among the few things in life that offer stability.

“There are things we can’t control. We have control over this.” —Emily Toman