The Stories that Must Be Shared

As a child, playing the piano was a safe way for me to release my unfiltered, intense emotions. Well, it was safer than using words to share whatever was going on inside of me. I was too young to really say, with any conciseness, what I was thinking or feeling. And, I was scared about potential adverse reactions people might have, especially since I didn’t experience life with just plain old vanilla. It was colorful, intense, and bold.

But, not everyone, all the time, including me, does art to express how they feel.

Sometimes it’s for other reasons. For example, an orchestra tries to perform what the composer intended for the piece or play how the conductor interpreted it.

And then, there are other motivations.

As I’ve shared before, I felt an insatiable impetus to write about love, and it hasn’t gone away. Not even close. If anything, the passion has grown.

But love is complicated. Sometimes we can’t stand it, but we can’t live without it.

In one of my favorite pieces to sing, “Oh Mio Babbino Caro,” from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Lauretta coaxes her father to help regarding the love of her life or she’ll commit suicide by jumping into the Arno river.

Though that’s from a comedy, we can see how intense, passionate, and troubling love can be.

But, how do we love in real life, where everything is messy? Reality is where beauty, wonder, kindness, as well as misunderstandings, manipulation, greediness, and hurt occupy the landscape.

How do we not only survive love but thrive, live well, and hope through and with love?

This is where my writing comes into play.

My desire and my goal is to bring your stories and mine together.

I’m not going to share personal events in my life. At least not through this series (of fiction). Rather, I’m relying on my experiences – some personal, some from accounts entrusted to me, and elsewhere – to show how we can share our deepest encounters, commiserate, and even dare to hope and be excited.

I’m not claiming that people don’t have unique situations that differentiate them from others. What I am saying is, we don’t have to be isolated. We can do life together. In fact, we can do better. We can live life to the fullest by relying on each other and vice versa. Then and only then can we transform and undergo a metamorphosis, becoming who we were meant to be.