What I Am

*By way of quick explanation, I select the lyric I’ll feature each day by hitting shuffle on my iPod and picking the first Neil Diamond song that comes up in rotation.

“Don’t know that I will, but until I can find me…
…I’ll be what I Am.  A Solitary Man.”
(“Solitary Man,” Neil Diamond)

I can remember reading a book called Anam Cara, that taught me to have no fear of being alone;  to enjoy solitude and refrain from racing rapidly to fill every quiet moment with noise.  It taught me that in the silence you can hear the voice of the divine in the form of intuition coming from within your own soul.

I took a bit of artistic license with the lyric and left a few words out because I loved the way the adjustment
read:  “Until I can find me, I’ll be what I AM.”  That phrase has become a very important sentiment for me.  I am always on a journey to learn who I am and to accept all the crazy bits of me.  When I need the most help understanding myself, I know I can sit alone in silence and let my intuition guide me.

I’ll forever be what I AM (which harkens the phrase “Wherever you go, there you are”) so I might as well get to accepting myself.  Some folks may not like my confidence,  they may feel uncomfortable with my security.  Because of their fears, others may cast me as a villain, some may talk about me.  Yet being true to myself hasn’t let me down yet, when faced with strife or sadness, joy or gladness.  I never have trouble sleeping at night, confident that I give everything I have to every day and every one.

A Solitary (Wo)Man… such a beautiful state of being.  Especially when I can bring back the peace of my soul and share it with others.

Playing Scenes

“Stay with me awhile, I only want to talk to you.
We’ve traveled halfway ’round the world, to find ourselves again.”
(“September Morn”- Neil Diamond)

I haven’t had it happen to me often, if ever:  Running into somebody who knew your heart so long ago.  What happens when you are in the grocery store or in line at the movies and you happen upon an old love or a friend whom you haven’t talked to in years?

Perhaps you resume your last conversation… pick up where you last left off, talking about the ideas that made your spirit soar.  Maybe you are interested in all of the good that has happened for them.  Maybe you ache to hear their hurts.  If a lover, does your heart speed up and beat loudly in your ears when they move to hug you?  Do you blush at the sight of their familiar smile?

Maybe friends and lovers bring back to you a piece of yourself that was lost with passing time.  They remind you of who you were for them, of who you always wanted to be.  Hearing their recollections fills in the missing memories of your soul.  While they are with you, you feel whole again… and want that to last for just a few more precious seconds.

In dreams or in days, I’d love for old friends to find me.  To talk to me and laugh with me.  To reveal how they’ve carried the pieces of my heart I gave to them in a perfect moment.

And certainly I’d ask them to stay with me awhile.

Woman

As promised, the renewed direction of my blog begins today.

“She shines with her own kind of light
She’d look at you once
and a day that’s all wrong looks alright.”
(“Kentucky Woman,” Neil Diamond)

Human attraction, to me, is one of the best examples of synchronicity.  What attracts certain people to one another?  Is it like minds?  The surroundings and moments in time in which we meet?  The respective circumstances of each of our lives?  We are unrelated, but can suddenly find ourselves in a scenario fraught with meaning… an ‘us‘ where moments before no ‘us‘ existed.

And we can bring out the loveliness in one another.  A look at our reflection in a mirror or window can show us our attractiveness.  Yet more marvelous is seeing ourselves in the glance of another.  Those particular reflections radiate an inner glow, a peek at the divine that resides in our souls.  When those reflections lead to secret smiles and a whispered “I love you,” the moment, the day and the world can look different than it did just moments before.

Blog Sung Blue: A Renewed Passion

It took a girls trip to the city, and front row seats at an amazing show to make me want to blog again.  I’ve been so wrapped up in the horror of the last 6 months (horror may be too strong, but I’m not feeling like grabbing the thesaurus) that I have not wanted to write anything I’ve been thinking or feeling down.  But on Friday night I got to live in the moment and drown out all the sadness, worry and despair (again, despair may be too strong but I’ve explained my lack of grammatical options).

An amazing tribute band and the high decibels at which they played their music helped immensely with drowning thoughts out.  The showmanship of all 6 performers (one guitarist in particular) helped infuse me with wonder and delight at something special.  The lyrics they sang helped awaken my poetic spirit.

So, thanks to Super Diamond and the lyrical genius of one Mr. Neil Diamond… I have a new direction for my blog.  I’m not going to change the name of my blog, or create a new one.  I don’t want to lose the flavor of what I started, and I can’t manage multiple blogs anymore.  Besides, I imagine a great mind like Mr. Diamond’s is well-versed in the psychology of Synchronicity:  two unrelated events that occur together in a meaningful way.  A happy accident.  Serendipity.  I won’t describe all of my unrelated events that have occurred together here… not sure anybody is reading them anyway.  But I can unveil the new direction of this blog (and by no means do I think this idea is unique, or not already being done by someone more clever than I).

I would like to take one Neil Diamond lyric a day and write a reflection on it.  I would like the posts to be happy and sad, striking and thoughtful.  I would like to keep captured close the sense of wonder I felt on Friday night, standing next to my friends… all of us captivated by an energy born from the synchronistic way that poetic words, beautiful music and random people came together.