the wondrous

the odd,

and the scary

In Real Life

0:50

New Stories For You

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Hi, I'm FRANCIS ROSENFELD

I GARDEN, I WRITE, AND I WATCH THE WORLD GO BY

There is nothing new under the sun but our perception of things. Technology advances, civilizations flourish and fall, but the human spirit never changes. We are born with all the storylines able to touch our soul. These basic tales bind us through time and cultural differences and allow us to relate to each other while we harbor completely different views of the world. The rest is just letting life flow quietly through you.

We thrive on empathy and recognizing ourselves in others; we love to know we’re not alone in our predicaments, victories or convictions.[...]

WHY I WRITE

essays

No story ever comes from nothing, there is no such thing as pure fiction. Without the honesty of real emotions and the authenticity of events that could have happened, the tale doesn’t touch the soul.

We thrive on empathy and recognizing ourselves in others; we love to know we’re not alone in our predicaments, victories or convictions.

We then reach for the mirror of stories, both real and made up, to see our own experiences reflected in them and find solace in the great sea of human thought, always in motion. We can’t help it, we’re wired to connect, care, be curious and offer opinions.

I write because I saw people sitting on benches in front of the Brandenburg gate and staring at the wall behind it, in the hope that their loved ones, or long-lost relatives, may be doing the same thing on the other side.
I write because I learned the story of the blizzard of 1954 when snow reached to the rooftops and people dug intricate systems of tunnels through it to reconnect their neighborhood.
I write because nobody else woke up to the morning sun illuminating the wall in my grandparents’ guest bedroom, highlighting the golden stencil patterns and playing with the tree shadows, nor did anyone else watch the streams of fast flowing water wrap around my ankles as I walked home from school in a torrential summer downpour.
I write because i was the one to come upon a very old headstone and been told the story of a pretty girl who died of consumption at the beginning of the twentieth century, aged sixteen. That story spanned seven decades to connect me to an unknown person’s life from way before my time. Who am I to let it pass into oblivion?

A deluge of images and memories, so thick I have trouble keeping up, brings back places, people and times: the surreal feeling of walking on Broadway for the first time on a freezing January morning, the ghostly halo of Niagara Falls covered in ice at night, the skyline of Manhattan with the Twin Towers still etched into my brain, picking pumpkins in the rain and laughing, knee deep in mud, the space shuttle Columbia disaster, the Curiosity landing, the time before personal computers.

I write because I get caught in the maelstrom of feelings and events from so many people near and far and I don’t want their unrepeatable experiences to be forgotten.

I write because I lived, loved, learned, hurt, and I have so much to say!

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Francis Rosenfeld

@FrRosenfeld

This is the greatest joy of writing, you get to create your own world just the way you want it to be, unchallenged. We storytellers are glorified liars, we revel in elevating deception to the standing of art.