This, that and the other thing

First things first.  For all of you who aren’t my friends on Facebook, here’s a picture of a Friday Fictioneers meeting in New Jersey on Wednesday.  The culprits are: Rich standing, your truly sitting on the left, Sharon on the right.  A great deal of fun was had by all.  Hopefully there will be more meetings.  We’re planning a history tour of Philadelphia next.

On to the writing.   A group of scribblers gathers weekly from around the globe for a virtual fun fest of writing based on a picture chosen after enormous deliberation by our intrepid leader, Rochelle Wisof f (no “h”)-Fields.  Once we’ve written and posted the innermost thoughts of our fevered brains, we read what everyone else has written by clicking on the little blue link critter found after our stories.

No reason you can’t join in the fun.  Possible categories of participation are (singly or in any combination): reading, pressing “like”, commenting, writing your own story and linking it by following Rochelle’s directions, or going mad from trying to do all of these for all the stories.  No matter what you choose, it’s so much fun that you’ll find  yourself happy that Friday comes on Wednesday each week. (Does that make it like Daylight Savings time, giving we get an extra few days and hours of daylight each week?)

Music: The Speech of the Soul

In the thirty years since her initial audition with the orchestra where he was principal cello, their marriage had weathered the drama of the music business, the travel, long hours, and friendly competition.

When arthritis gnarled his hands too much to play, he rejoiced in her first chair appointment, never missing a performance.  Now, after the stroke, he lay locked inside himself, unable to communicate.

By his hospital bed, the cello a hard-won concession, she closed her eyes tightly against tears, whispered his joshing words from that first day, “We could make beautiful music together”, and began to play softly.

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“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination
and life to everything.”
― Plato

“Music . . . can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.”
― Leonard Bernstein

“Who hears music, feels his solitude
Peopled at once.”
― Robert Browning, The complete poetical works for Browning

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”
―Victor Hugo