Heather Richmond
Bio
Spiritual Teacher and Writer.
Stories (13/0)
Harvest Moon
"If you’re reluctant to weep, you won’t live a full and complete life." -Ray Bradbury, explaining a rare departure in style after he wrote a short story about a young girl he met at the beach. She went into the water and she never came back. When he wrote about the experience and his reflections on death much later, tears flowed freely from his eyes. It was the first time, he acknowledged, that he had written a story that came from his innermost voice.
By Heather Richmond2 years ago in Fiction
Love, Alone
Love, Alone. It was only as I walked with him back to Grand Central that I saw the fear return to his eyes. A paradox I couldn’t understand then, he seemed to exhale in relief of its return. For a brief time, he’d cast aside that horror he carried around like a talisman. But it became clear that he found comfort in fear. He’d never really loved a woman, but I know now that he clung with desperation to the security of being terrified by them.
By Heather Richmond3 years ago in Confessions
The Gods of Times Square
A New York City cab driver once told me, as he snaked through the mire of Times Square traffic, "You know...we hate the things you all love" and with a dispassionate hatred, vaguely gestured toward the gnarly, tangled mess that surrounded us. And, now, I can absolutely see why New Yorkers would abhor this place to which all the tourists flock. Not only do the waddling masses from those flyover states remind them of the reality that exists outside the city, its adrenaline-inducing effect is unsustainable and, ultimately, unfulfilling. It seems to me that Times Square, and places like it, are where people come to fill themselves up--for a little while, at least. This is where they come to see the bigger versions of familiar things, those logos that adorn the streets of their hometowns, lit up and towering over them, their corporate allegiances much stronger than the thin ones they have to their gods.
By Heather Richmond4 years ago in Humans
I Will Write the Rest
The earliest memory I have from my childhood is of my father dropping me. I can't recall his face. I don't know whether my mother was there or how old I was or what I was wearing. I can only remember the pure joy of looking out of the huge window, over the city lights, as he held me high above his head and as he laughed with me. He wanted me to see this sight whose beauty he knew I would not understand until much later. But he hoped I would store it up and think about it when I needed reminding that the world is a good place. He wanted me to feel his happiness, if only for a moment, fleeting like his own. And I did. Until his arms, unsteady from all he'd had to drink so that he could forget these foreign thoughts, faltered. And his hands shook. And he let me fall right through them.
By Heather Richmond4 years ago in Families
The Sin of Saying "I"
This is an evil thing to say, for it is a transgression...and we have never spoken of it. But we know. We know when we look into each other's eyes. And when we look thus without words, we both know other things also, strange things for which there are no words, and these things frighten us.
By Heather Richmond4 years ago in Humans
The Colors of Duality
In search of meaning and attempts at understanding, my all-too-human mind then seeks to assign it value. I critically judge the things that I cannot yet comprehend in hopes of choking out its meaning. I pull the noose in a myriad of ways. By deeming part of it to be true and dismissing the other as false. By embracing the white to be good and shunning the black as an evil. And, of course, by traversing one path as the right one, never exploring the other because it is wrong.
By Heather Richmond4 years ago in Humans
love?[sic]k?
After checking in with the emergency room receptionist, I took a seat and held my head in my hands. The worst pain I'd ever felt sliced through the space behind my eyes, leaving me in agony. Humiliatingly, I began to gag. In the middle of the crowded waiting room, I vomited until there was nothing left. I was empty. Ancient… Cleansed.
By Heather Richmond4 years ago in Humans
Lessons Learned
When we are moved to such a state of hysteria so as to conclude we are “in love”, can we ever really know the true object of our affection? Is it really her? Or him? Or is it the person we become in their presence that leads us to feel that we “love” them? If that is the case, is it fair to say that we only ever really love ourselves? Though I have thought about this far too much, I doubt I'll ever reach a conclusion. It seems to be a question without an answer.
By Heather Richmond4 years ago in Filthy