Riviera Transcendence
At the end of the day, we are all just walking each other home.
“Hello?”
A voice bleeds through the static of my phone.
It’s not the voice I expected. It’s weak—tired—thin. I’ve known this voice, or rather the soul behind it, for more than forty years, and it has never sounded despondent. Never lost.
Until tonight.
This soul, a thread in the tapestry of my being, has always been resilient—rigorous, adaptable, little ever fazing her. But the last two months have been a coup de grâce on the heels of two years of death and loss.
Both sons divorced. Both parents gone. Three other family deaths. A dozen close friends. And now—her partner of forty-seven years faces heart failure. Not the metaphorical kind—they’ve survived their share of heartbreaks—but the kind where you need a new heart. Or, in his case, new valves.
But as advanced as medicine has become, there are still things it cannot fix. And she’s beginning to understand they may not be able to save him.
The exhaustion of hospitals, the slow erosion of hope, the steady pressure of existence—it’s all taking its toll on my dear, dear friend.
I call her the Queen of Swords. A curious and luminous personality whose name has roots in Norse myth, it’s a fitting title for someone who’s fought a valiant fight through a lifetime. A true warrior heart with the mind and soul of a poet. Deeply spiritual, emotionally vulnerable, fiercely supportive, and trusting. A beautiful soul—and, like most beautiful souls, not everyone’s cup of tea.
To be fully seen by somebody, and be loved anyhow—this is humanity bordering on miraculous.
The Power of Belonging
There’s a hitched quality in her voice—I can tell she’s broken. This won’t be a short call. Silence will linger often. It’s oddly comforting—the kind of quiet you share with a lover: not awkward, not empty—just being. The Queen of Swords and I have never been lovers, but the intimacy is no less real.
There’s a sisterly, almost motherly current between us—one that would forever prevent piercing that veil—but in this moment, the comfort and acceptance are absolute. The newer, molted version of me feels her sorrow differently now. Not performatively, but soulically. Her loss reverberates through me.
It feels sacred—two souls standing together at the cliffs of eternity, peering out into the vastness, soaking in the mystery.
As she begins to breathe again, I gently steer us from the rawness of loss toward the fragile promise of what remains: the future, the in-between, the quiet task of living between now and then.
She brightens. Slowly, she starts to sound like herself again. We wade into heady waters—territory we both love exploring. The unseen. The unknown. Woowoo, as she calls it.
One of our shared themes is the power of belonging and validation. Longtime readers and fellow wanderers in my mindscape will know that being seen—being accepted—is the lodestar of my soul.
We spoke of life and death, the strange pressures of existing inside a world designed to use us and discard us. A kind of Matrix reality: once we’re done, it flushes us.
Somewhere between lament and laughter, she shared a fragment from a psychology lecture she’d heard. The speaker had said that every human being needs five things:
Acceptance.
Acknowledgment.
Affection.
Approval.
Appreciation.
I agreed instantly. Especially with the first one.
Do you know what those spell? Visibility. The simple, holy act of being seen.
Profound, really—and exactly what so much of the reading I’ve done lately keeps circling back to. Not just being seen by others, but by ourselves.
Because there’s a vast difference between a platitude and a true act of appreciation. Between words that sound polite and words that reach the heart. Maybe that difference lies in psychology. Maybe it’s timing.
I find myself wondering how often I’ve meant it—really meant it—but failed to convey it, or offered it too late.
Every man’s memory is his private literature.
Pastimes
We got on the topic of feelings you can’t describe. Her example was the first time she stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon. That overwhelming sense of vastness. Good writers can help a person get there if they’ve known it themselves—but otherwise, it’s like describing color to the blind.
That memory triggered a recent conversation I’d had about pastimes—those activities that please us simply by being done. Fishing, camping, sewing, reading, listening to music. They don’t have to be productive; they enrich us by existing.
For me, I’ve concluded that my favorite pastime is to be in a state of wonder. To explore—big or small, inward or outward.
And that’s what she was describing: that ecstatic flash when something awe-inspiring hits you.
Even if you can write or speak about it, unless the listener has felt it, they won’t arrive. Words can only point—guideposts leading us back to where we’ve already been. To memory. And, according to my woowoo friend, memory isn’t just stored in the brain—it lives throughout the body: liver, lungs, heart, even fascia.
I might be losing the thread here.
If you pour some music on whatever’s wrong, it’ll sure help out.
Soundscape Escape
What really pulled me down this rabbit hole was Stevie Ray Vaughan's Riviera Paradise.
Earlier in the day, Wysteria had suggested Vaughan’s In Step as the album of the day and suggested that the final song would “send me into orbit.”
That was a perfect description. My actual response, written mid-maelstrom, was this:
Hello from the moon.
This song delivers wonderful… warmth? Vibration?
Something through the biceps and into the chest.
Liquid peace—like an exhale after a storm.
Eyes closed, drifting on the current of trust and grace.
It’s a back rub while falling asleep.
Orbital, man.
When I analyze my description, it’s a catalog of physiological reactions. The arms and chest—likely a hormonal surge, maybe epinephrine—creating the sensation. Warmth, vibration, pressure. Those contrasts—against cold or stillness—are what make them pleasurable.
“Liquid peace”: viscous, enveloping, soft. Island time. No pressure. The exhale—release of tension. Setting down the thoughts, worries, beliefs—becoming part of the music, a small transcendence. Drifting. Weightless.
Words matter so much to me that it’s fascinating when music moves me without them. The Bible book of Canticles is a good example of the opposite—the power of language—but what made it the Song of Songs was not only wisdom in the words, but what accompanied them. Imagine having divine insight and limitless resources: the ability to craft the perfect song and render it perfectly.
All of this is to say: we can reach places we’ve never been.
Is it just biology, though? Can Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bowie, the Boss, Elton bring us to that edge-of-the-Grand-Canyon moment? Maybe not explicitly. But they can push the same buttons—those same sacred neural circuits that light up when we fall in love, gaze into a night sky, or sip a cold drink on a hot day.
The sensations are biological, yes—but I believe there’s another layer beyond what science can quantify.
The layer we call spiritual.
Like a meal: we understand taste buds and digestion, yet we can’t predict how a flavor will touch each tongue. Too many variables.
And what’s the point of quantifying it anyway? To sell it back to us? To bottle lightning for commerce?
Better to just go stand at the edge of the canyon. To fall in love. Drink the tea. Turn up the stereo. Dance in the rain.
That is what it means to be human—and why being one is profoundly wonderful.
Anything that stands between us and that raw experience dulls what was designed to move us.
Plunge in. Don’t hold back.
Once you’ve been to the mountain, going back is just as awe-filled—but even better, you no longer have to go there to feel it. Other tools—like music—can carry you.
That’s what Riviera Paradise does for me. It carries me somewhere I’ve already been. It’s dangerous, tear-inspiring, relaxing, invigorating—sometimes all at once. Then, as the guitar and drums rise, it ices the cake with something new, launching me into the stratosphere.
So I wonder—are the experiences we begin with, the cake itself, similar or different? Are our emotional reactions close enough that we can still connect through sound? For you, maybe it was the birth of a child or your first kiss. For me, perhaps the Grand Canyon—or being held in someone’s lap.
Do those foundational experiences have parity?
I don’t know how anyone could measure that.
I don’t know what Riviera Paradise is touching inside me.
Perhaps my dreams tonight will tell me.
Epilogue: The Light That Remains
Long after the call ended, I sat in the quiet glow of the room, the tail end of Riviera Paradise still circling through my head. The Queen of Swords had gone to tend to her world of heart monitors and hospital corridors, and I was left to tend to mine — this small altar of thought and sound.
I thought of her strength, and of that weary voice I’d heard at the start of the call. The world can carve deep lines into even the most radiant souls. Yet, somehow, she still reaches for light — still looks for meaning in the ruins, still believes that something unseen is listening.
Maybe that’s what wonder really is: not astonishment at what’s beautiful, but reverence for what survives.
The five A’s — Acceptance, Acknowledgment, Affection, Approval, Appreciation — are all forms of that reverence. They are how we say you are visible to me, even when life’s fog tries to erase the outline.
Music does it.
Love does it.
So does simply being present when another human voice trembles on the line.
I think that’s why Riviera Paradise strikes so deeply — it’s not just sound; it’s recognition. A wordless reminder that, even in sorrow, we still belong to something luminous.
The Queen of Swords and I both needed that reminder tonight.
To feel the vibration.
To stand again at the edge of the canyon and breathe.
To be seen — by each other, by Jehovah, by the pulse of the universe — and to see ourselves reflected there.
That’s all any of us are really asking for.
A little visibility.
A little acceptance.
A little grace.
And a song to carry us home.
#catharsis #essay #100daystooffset #writing #story #osxs #music
Discuss...
WolfCast Home Page – Listen, follow, subscribe
Thank you for coming here and walking through the garden of my mind. No day is as brilliant in its moment as it is gilded in memory. Embrace your experience and relish gorgeous recollection.
Into every life a little light will shine. Thank you for being my luminance in whatever capacity you may. Shine on, you brilliant souls!
— Go back home and read MORE by Wolf Inwool
— Visit the archive
I welcome feedback at my inbox
