has it all been said?

I attended a wedding the other evening, a beautiful celebration on a grassy lawn beside a pond, shaded by trees, with dappled sunlight touching guests here and there.  a chuppah was set in front of the chairs, a striking collection of slender logs with smooth gray bark, chiffon, and flower bunches thick with light purple hydrangea and pale yellow roses.  the ceremony was heartfelt and personal, while still adhering to tradition and doctrine.  other than one of the bridesmaids fainting, it flowed easily and engagingly.  a string quartet had played traditional music as we gathered and seated ourselves and for the entrance of the wedding party and bride, but as the newly married couple departed the setting,  they played a beatles song, in my life.

I don’t listen to beatles’ songs nearly enough.  in my life is a love song that includes people and places and memories, saying I’ll often stop and think about them, and that  I’ve loved them all.  life is filled with experiences and encounters, and there’s no better way to go through life than by acknowledging how each one–good and bad–has affected you for the better.

reading good literature and poetry, listening to powerful compositions, and hearing musicians do what they do best are all things that touch hearts and souls.  and the beatles were extremely talented at writing poetry, lyrics, and music.  I am not placing them above anyone else, I am just using them as an example of talented people who created amazing works.  I listen to lyrics like these and think, what else do we need to say?

we now live in a world of 7 billion people, a world that has fostered writers for over a thousand years, writers who have produced millions of written works.

I sometimes wonder if there’s anything left to say.

yet I keep plugging away at it, as do tens of thousands of others.  after all these years, after reading and listening to thousands of others, we still want to say things in our own words.  I think about just spending the rest of my life reading what everyone else thinks, feels, and writes, and it’s certainly tempting.  but I find that after a period of time spent reading, or riding my bicycle, talking with friends or just being, my hand begins to search for a pen, and I want to write.

whether it’s all been said or not, I have a desire to say it again, perhaps a little bit differently, hopefully from a perspective that is subtly shifted away from that of others.  I accept the reality that my words will bear striking similarity to those of others, and that none of my thoughts are truly unique.  that’s okay.  I still have to write.

may you continue doing what you need to do, whether someone else is doing the same thing or not, whether it’s already been done a million times, or even if it feels like just one more version of someone else’s idea.  you have a passion for a reason:  fuel it, feel it, live it.