Cloister

If only

I could be cloistered in The Cloisters

That beautiful structure

Standing in the center of a gorgeous park

At the highest point in Manhattan

A park so peaceful

A place so open

A world so green

Looking out over the Hudson River

With the sun shining on the water.

If only

I could look out

From the top of the stone ramparts

Filled with history

That tell the story

Of a massive battle.

Fought closer to home

Than we could feel

From our classrooms in the West.

Out here

This battle

Took place

Where. We. Are.

When it is no longer far away

We have no choice

But to take note.

Remember.

History. Is. Now.

Make it what you want

The future to reflect on.

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Calm during the Madness

Today I forced myself to get out for a brief walk in the park to give my body some much-needed exercise. The scenery did not disappoint! I’ve been writing a fair amount during my quarantining due to Covid-19 in NYC and social distancing, but today I needed a break. I hope the picture I took at my local park makes you happy!

New Beginnings

This ought to be an interesting year. Why? Because we are in 2020…and that reminds me of hindsight being 20/20 vision. Maybe this time we’ll each get it right the first time. There’ll be no need look to the past to correct errors, because maybe this will be our lucky 20/20 not-much-in-hindsight but rather present year. And also, a little tip for 2020: make sure to write out 2020 in full your important documents/checks. It could turn ugly if the wrong person gets a hold of important documents and decides to add a 1 or a higher digit it could create a lot of trouble for you. With that, let’s raise a glass to 2020! Cheers and have a fantastic year! I can’t wait to see what it brings for all of us. New Beginnings

Composing Beauty

Ingenuity, I love that word! It has such a nice ring to it, and such a deep meaning (at least to me). I view ingenuity as an essential skill in creativity, and creativity/ingenuity an essential skill of surviving in this new, digital age. I find it fascinating that one can create a job or a career for themselves where there was nothing before. In today’s day and age the opportunities for money making are endless. One of my inspirations for this exact thing is Lin-Manuel Miranda, internationally famous composer of Hamilton, In The Heights, and a member of Freestyle Love Supreme (who, I’m sure, has many more credits, both famous and not, to his name).

I’m absolutely enthralled by his tenacity, skill, perseverance, and his genius. He literally put himself on the map in the entertainment world. He created something brilliant using just his brains, skills, experience, and a pencil and paper. Not only that, but it’s given other artists the opportunity to be a part of the beautiful, caring community that he’s created throughout this process. He’s even changing the world and peoples’ lives by using his works to support causes that he cares deeply about. That, to me, is ingenuity. It”s creativity. I could write many, MANY more paragraphs about my admiration for him as an artist and person, but I’ll get to that in a later post because I could write a novel on it with my ability to go off on tangents and daydream (although that is not a bad thing).

With technology we have the tools to create new things every day. Heck, this article is new right now. It is not a masterpiece of an article, but it’s being created now, in the moment, and shared. Nowadays we have all kinds of opportunities for financial success, we just have to use our ingenuity to build on them. For example, in the past we couldn’t write something and automatically earn money  within a moments’ notice. Now we can. We couldn’t write a book and have it published on amazon without going through the proper book publishers outside of the company and then selling it…but now we can self-publish books and sell them online. We couldn’t automatically create a video of ourselves performing and broadcast it to the world, thereby gaining fame. Now, we have stars who got their start doing just that on youtube. The opportunities are endless. When you think about it, once you open up your mind and heart to creativity so many ideas can come pouring in, and you just have to work tirelessly at them, with all your passion and heart, to create something that you truly stand by. You don’t even have to create for others. Create for yourself, and your passion, care, tenacity, strength, and genius will shine through and you will find your own success by using inginuity.

Composing Beauty

Ingenuity, I love that word! It has such a nice ring to it, and such a deep meaning (at least to me). I view ingenuity as an essential skill in creativity, and creativity/ingenuity an essential skill of surviving in this new, digital age. I find it fascinating that one can create a job or a career for themselves where there was nothing before. In today’s day and age the opportunities for money making are endless. One of my inspirations for this exact thing is Lin-Manuel Miranda, internationally famous composer of Hamilton, In The Heights, and a member of Freestyle Love Supreme (who, I’m sure, has many more credits, both famous and not, to his name).

I’m absolutely enthralled by his tenacity, skill, perseverance, and his genius. He literally put himself on the map in the entertainment world. He created something brilliant using just his brains, skills, experience, and a pencil and paper. Not only that, but it’s given other artists the opportunity to be a part of the beautiful, caring community that he’s created throughout this process. He’s even changing the world and peoples’ lives by using his works to support causes that he cares deeply about. That, to me, is ingenuity. It”s creativity. I could write many, MANY more paragraphs about my admiration for him as an artist and person, but I’ll get to that in a later post because I could write a novel on it with my ability to go off on tangents and daydream (although that is not a bad thing).

With technology we have the tools to create new things every day. Heck, this article is new right now. It is not a masterpiece of an article, but it’s being created now, in the moment, and shared. Nowadays we have all kinds of opportunities for financial success, we just have to use our ingenuity to build on them. For example, in the past we couldn’t write something and automatically earn money  within a moments’ notice. Now we can. We couldn’t write a book and have it published on amazon without going through the proper book publishers outside of the company and then selling it…but now we can self-publish books and sell them online. We couldn’t automatically create a video of ourselves performing and broadcast it to the world, thereby gaining fame. Now, we have stars who got their start doing just that on youtube. The opportunities are endless. When you think about it, once you open up your mind and heart to creativity so many ideas can come pouring in, and you just have to work tirelessly at them, with all your passion and heart, to create something that you truly stand by. You don’t even have to create for others. Create for yourself, and your passion, care, tenacity, strength, and genius will shine through and you will find your own success by using inginuity.

Ground Central

I’ve officially found my favorite coffee shop in NYC! You step in and feel like you’re not in NYC anymore…so it’s very NYC!

RDP Sunday: Rock

Rock has sooooo many avenues that come to mind when I picture the word. There’s rock music, there’s geological rocks, you can even describe someone as your rock. I gotta say, though, that the first thing that came to my mind is one of my favorite places on the face of the planet. It’s an area steeped in geological history that is overtly on display. It’s sense of magnitude and it’s enormity dwarfs you and makes you realize how massive and beautiful the earth is. It overwhelms you. It shows you Mother Nature’s strength. Curious what this place is yet? It’s in the state named for its red rocks…or, Colorado.

Glenwood Canyon is one of the most gorgeous places I’ve ever had the chance to visit. It’s beautiful, red, multi-layered canyon mountains/rocks rise starkly and abruptly for miles, the Colorado River to winding its way through them. One could stare up in awe just like a tourist in NYC, lost for words, for hours. You can see each layer of sediment displayed in the rock formations and how the earth grew and changed during each period. It contains three types of rocks: metamorphic, sedimentary, and igneous, and many subgroups as well. The history of the canyon is long and detailed. The visuals are stunning, with the rock faces reaching up to 1,300 feet in height over the Colorado River. 12.5 miles of amazing. The height of these formations makes one feel like a spec…but a spec that gets to view all of the beauty that the earth has to offer. It is not a scary feeling, nor is it stressful. It is an awe-inspiring reminder that the earth is more powerful, vast, and fascinating than we often times remember. Rock

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