The other day I asked a good friend of mine if she had a chance to check out this blog. The answer she gave was brutally honest, thought provoking and somewhat amusing. Her answer, (I will paraphrase for the sake of brevity) went something like this: “Why do you think anyone cares what you have to say? People like you always think other people are interested in what you have to say, I hate to break it to you they’re not.” The amusing part, I will share later.
Her answer caused me to reflect on why “people like me” feel so compelled to share their thoughts on a blog? According to recent estimates there are approximately 50 million blogs in the blogsphere worldwide. Why do so many people use this medium to express ideas, thoughts, opinions, to what in most cases is a miniscule audience? Is it an exercise in vanity? Democracy? Futility? The short answer is all of the above, people express themselves in this medium because they can.
Why me? My goal was to develop an outlet for ideas, reflection and insight that might resonate with others who find such things stimulating. It also offers me the opportunity to write about things I care about…whatever that happens to be on any given day. Too often our day to day lives, apart from what we do for work, are filled with innocuous chatter about things that have little consequence; weather, traffic, gossip, what’s for dinner, something annoying that happened today…stuff like that. Seldom do we stop to reflect and share insight about experiences that feed our soul, touch the heart or cause us to think. We are fortunate enough to live in a country where the work of great writers, great artists, musicians, lyricist are incredibly easy to access, yet it seems to me we rarely make it point to take time to share the experiences that come from connecting with such inspired beauty, passion, insight, thoughtfulness and clarity. Usually, we are much more comfortable skimming the surface rather than pause long enough to connect with some inner illumination that we may have encountered. It could be the nature of our busy lives that makes it easier to tune out rather than engage what lies beneath the surface in some meaningful way. Who has time, right?
I’ve had a love affair with words since I was about 14. As I get older this affair has matured and evolved in a manner that has illuminated my connection to the world around me a way nothing else has. I write because I can, sometimes because I have to. I write for the same reason I play music, if I release something of my inner experience and it resonates with someone else, it takes on a life of its own and maybe it just might inspire someone else to do likewise. So for this very tiny audience, I choose to share this love affair with words, it has been a most rewarding relationship and she is a very accommodating mistress.
Amusing part? After attempting to disabuse me of any self-delusion I might have harbored about writing anything that might be of interest to anyone, my good friend shared that she was thinking about starting a blog of her own, but she was only interested in doing it for money. I'm guessing having a love affair with words is not something my good friend had time for right now.
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Reflections, Observations and Resonant Experiences From the frontlines of the war on sanity
Welcome to my blog
This blog is work in progress. The idea is for this space to become a forum for observations and insight that might perhaps stimulate thought, encourage an exchange of ideas and occasionally entertain and amuse. I hope you enjoy and can find time to witness and contribute to the evolution of the ideas contained in this space.
Quotes:
"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."
Albert Einstein
"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak: courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."
Sir Winston Churchill
"I Believe in all that has never yet been spoken. I want to free what waits within me so that what no one has dared to wish for, may for once spring clear without my contriving. If this is arrogance, God, forgive me, but this is what I need to say. May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way is is with children.
Then in these welling and ebbing currents, these deepening tides moving out, returning, I will sing you as no one ever has, streaming through widening channels into the open sea."
Rainer Maria Rilke
"It ought to be easy ought to be simple enough. Man meets woman and they fall in love, But the house is haunted and the ride gets rough, And you've got to learn to live with what you cant rise above, if you want to ride on down in through this tunnel of love..."
Bruce Springsteen
"After the sleepless nights and restless days, after wounds have been opened and tears have been shed, after the soul is laid bare and the heart bleeds for wanting, after words falter and meaning is denied, after the promise of bliss is forsaken and the seeds of doubt bear fruit, after darkness fills the emptiness and emptiness is all that remains....
After all this, in the echo of all that came before….their can still be hope."
L. Rivera
Albert Einstein
"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak: courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."
Sir Winston Churchill
"I Believe in all that has never yet been spoken. I want to free what waits within me so that what no one has dared to wish for, may for once spring clear without my contriving. If this is arrogance, God, forgive me, but this is what I need to say. May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way is is with children.
Then in these welling and ebbing currents, these deepening tides moving out, returning, I will sing you as no one ever has, streaming through widening channels into the open sea."
Rainer Maria Rilke
"It ought to be easy ought to be simple enough. Man meets woman and they fall in love, But the house is haunted and the ride gets rough, And you've got to learn to live with what you cant rise above, if you want to ride on down in through this tunnel of love..."
Bruce Springsteen
"After the sleepless nights and restless days, after wounds have been opened and tears have been shed, after the soul is laid bare and the heart bleeds for wanting, after words falter and meaning is denied, after the promise of bliss is forsaken and the seeds of doubt bear fruit, after darkness fills the emptiness and emptiness is all that remains....
After all this, in the echo of all that came before….their can still be hope."
L. Rivera
Amalfi Sunset
Creative Write
Life In Rain
It’s raining outside. Pouring. Inside the fireplace is lit, silhouettes move across the walls responding to unseen forces, dancing to a music of their own. It smells of hickory and cinnamon. Echoes of laughter, music and children’s voices warm the room. The wind blows patterns of raindrops onto the window, bending the light so that the trees and buildings outside move in and out of focus. By the door is a size two sneaker. Only one, its companion resting in some other location, its owner also resting in some other location, lost in dreams of her own. Throughout the house shadows meet light forming images on an invisible canvas that celebrate the ordinary miracles that bless its inhabitants. It is quiet in this place now and the rain shows no sign of letting up. A knock on the door, faint at first, then once more, this time more insistent. The door opens. Wind, rain cross the threshold, no one enters… Yet somehow a presence lingers…A shadow, a thought, a feeling that fills the empty spaces. Perhaps it’s merely an illusion, a trick of the light caused by the wind and falling rain. No. It’s proximity is undeniable now. A presence that touches the soul. Inside a man stands alone; he is startled, moved by a power he cannot yet define. Inside him something stirs. He rises from the stillness of his own thoughts, blood rushing through him, driven by the rhythm of a heart that has been awakened from a slumber long in the making and slow in the undoing. Excitement, fear, anticipation, build to a crescendo, manifested in an inner symphony that no one hears. Again, a knock, louder, urgent, unrelenting…. Again the door is forced open. In the darkness a figure moves in and out of shadows. Rain obscuring the view, the observer appears uncertain, unsure of what he sees…. He stands at the portal trying to envision what might await there. He looks out upon the tempest that is passing and sees only fading images that depart before he can grasp what lies before him. His heart fills with desire, yet he remains silent, for the image recedes before its semblance can be made whole. The presence withdraws before its form can be fully defined, her essence vanishing before it can be fully embraced. The rain is relentless.
Inside the man retreats to the comfort of shadows and light, of fire and warmth, of memories of laughter and a music that only he can hear. He retreats to the world of small wonders embodied in the image of a singular size two sneaker. Still, he remains haunted by the lingering presence that awakened him from a deep and dreamless sleep…Was it a ghost? A memory of some distant past? A vision of some future yet lived?
He retreats to the comfort of shadows and light, of fire and warmth, of memories of laughter and a music that only he can hear. He retreats to the world of small wonders embodied in the image of a singular size two sneaker. It’s raining outside. Perhaps; perhaps it was just the rain.
It’s raining outside. Pouring. Inside the fireplace is lit, silhouettes move across the walls responding to unseen forces, dancing to a music of their own. It smells of hickory and cinnamon. Echoes of laughter, music and children’s voices warm the room. The wind blows patterns of raindrops onto the window, bending the light so that the trees and buildings outside move in and out of focus. By the door is a size two sneaker. Only one, its companion resting in some other location, its owner also resting in some other location, lost in dreams of her own. Throughout the house shadows meet light forming images on an invisible canvas that celebrate the ordinary miracles that bless its inhabitants. It is quiet in this place now and the rain shows no sign of letting up. A knock on the door, faint at first, then once more, this time more insistent. The door opens. Wind, rain cross the threshold, no one enters… Yet somehow a presence lingers…A shadow, a thought, a feeling that fills the empty spaces. Perhaps it’s merely an illusion, a trick of the light caused by the wind and falling rain. No. It’s proximity is undeniable now. A presence that touches the soul. Inside a man stands alone; he is startled, moved by a power he cannot yet define. Inside him something stirs. He rises from the stillness of his own thoughts, blood rushing through him, driven by the rhythm of a heart that has been awakened from a slumber long in the making and slow in the undoing. Excitement, fear, anticipation, build to a crescendo, manifested in an inner symphony that no one hears. Again, a knock, louder, urgent, unrelenting…. Again the door is forced open. In the darkness a figure moves in and out of shadows. Rain obscuring the view, the observer appears uncertain, unsure of what he sees…. He stands at the portal trying to envision what might await there. He looks out upon the tempest that is passing and sees only fading images that depart before he can grasp what lies before him. His heart fills with desire, yet he remains silent, for the image recedes before its semblance can be made whole. The presence withdraws before its form can be fully defined, her essence vanishing before it can be fully embraced. The rain is relentless.
Inside the man retreats to the comfort of shadows and light, of fire and warmth, of memories of laughter and a music that only he can hear. He retreats to the world of small wonders embodied in the image of a singular size two sneaker. Still, he remains haunted by the lingering presence that awakened him from a deep and dreamless sleep…Was it a ghost? A memory of some distant past? A vision of some future yet lived?
He retreats to the comfort of shadows and light, of fire and warmth, of memories of laughter and a music that only he can hear. He retreats to the world of small wonders embodied in the image of a singular size two sneaker. It’s raining outside. Perhaps; perhaps it was just the rain.
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