A Crying Pencil Writing the Symphony of Love’s material has been scratching at the back of my brain throughout many years of my adult sometimes pain-ridden life.  Writing it has been my salvation, my passion and it is my heart, unedited, in words for you. 

I have been waiting for the right time to bring it to the world experiencing what many writers have learned and felt since man set pencil to paper:  that the thing might never feel “done.”  And for that, and many other reasons, my heart, in its written form, has not yet been released to the world like the dove from Noah’s bow.

When the earth shook my homeland of Haïti extinguishing so many lives that have touched me, I learned a sobering fact:  there is no future.  There is now.  The flood of clichés overwhelmed me:  you never know what could happen tomorrow, cherish every moment they may never come again, live in the now, carpe diem.  Whatever you wish. 

For Lionel Denis, Bainet Vital, Ashaan Pierre-Antoine, Mrs. Jean Baptiste, Appolon Jean Baptiste, Mr. and Mrs. Renee, Moise and Joanne, there will be no more tomorrows.  And this book, which I intended to be the gift of my heart and my love to the world has turned back upon its writer and I now take it as daily medicine to heal my heart of its enormous loss.  And those names are only the ones I know of as of the date I dropped this file off at the printer.

All the proceeds of the 2010 Haïti Earthquake Relief Printing of A Crying Pencil Writing the Symphony of Love will be given to actual human beings.  Victims of the quake that I know personally, the way you know your childhood neighbor, your best friend’s son, your high school class president.  Real people.  They are not numbers or statistics or images on yahoo.com.  They are people and they need our help.  I promise and pledge from the depth of my soul to pass your generous donation along without delay. 

So, of course, I thank you for paying the cost of the book and I thank those of you who chose to actually give more than the price of the book.

As our nation grieves for our battered neighbor to the south, as you may suffer watching the heartbreak on the news, on the internet or in private discussions with Haïtian families or individuals, I would like to ask you not to make the mistake of giving to the cause and neglecting to read the book.  There is a reason I chose the early release of this book as a vehicle for Haiti’s aid.  There is healing in its pages and whether you are a victim, know a victim, care about victims unknown, or you’re simply a soul in pain, been in pain or will be in pain, A Crying Pencil Writing the Symphony of Love will be there for you.

Thank you for being there for Haïti.

With love that I might never be able to express adequately,

Martin Barthold, author

Read an excerpt below and more in my dancing blog...

Have you ever been passionate about something? 

If you have, you are already part of this journey.  If you have not, little did you know:  this journey will be, in fact, still well - designed for you.  Prepare yourself:  you will be taken to the place where love was born; these lines will open your eyes and change your heart forever.

So, I will ask again:  have you ever been passionate about something? 

Maybe you’re not sure.

Passion is a flamboyant, electrifying, burning desire to achieve beyond expectation, to exist beyond ages, to accomplish the impossible, to redefine laws, norms and principles, to set new records and to live forever.  It is an exquisite flame of determination fueled by desire to purify the soul and the mind no matter the weather, the consequences, or the mines of difficulty lain in its path.  It is the sensational belief that the impossible is achievable if one is only tenacious, consistent and sufficiently motivated.  Passion is a blooming flower implanted in the middle of your head filtered through the canals that are your veins, to each corner of your brain, nourishing every cell, every molecule, every chromosome and particle attached to your senses.

Now, sometimes, despite this inexplicable and mysterious feeling growing underneath your hair like a long extension of strength sweeping the floor behind you -- a beautiful peacock’s tail wedding-dress train; despite this, you can still find yourself, alone, crying in a dark hole. 

Sometimes you can cry and cry.

You watch the tears fall from your eyes down to your cheek then dry; and again:  you cry...expecting the tears to soften the pain.

Then, once again the tears fall (and dry) but Pain still finds his way into your bones, your heart, your every move, your every thought; and every picture that is left in your mind of the memories of the wonderful times you’ve had:  back when the painting of life was magical, sweet as a strawberry, soft and tender as a newborn.  New love, new hope, new feelings and a lot of happiness.  When every smell reminded you of an exotic island; the sky clear, the water blue, the sand white.  A time when you were the fruit of love living in Paradise; your soul:  clear, white and blue flying heavenly above all.  Above all misery and suffering, everyday killing and torture, everyday drama, disturbance, famine, war between the Power countries, genocide in the Third world countries like Haïti, massacres in the name of human ideology, gang bangs in our own communities.  It is above all fear established in the heart of our own cities.  But we are not at the end of this story.

This is the beginning of a long journey.  The beginning of a new discovery, a brand new theory.  A new way of embracing life’s burdens and turning them into hope.  But, like all theories, it will come to be subject to great, heated debate.  Unlike the seemingly undeniable theory of gravity, this one will seem sometimes to fritter away like a frightened rabbit.  This theory, however, should be treated as fact -- despite our having no good way to test it -- because it is a resplendently viable path toward satisfaction, a way to nourish mistakes and errors and transform them into a powerful strike:  a splendid force that can awaken the disappointment of life, the rejection by others, a slap in the face, a stab in the back, the tears in the dark, the pain in the heart, the scars peppering the skin, the wounds in the eyes, the fears in everyone’s faces, the stomach ache -- and the headache that comes to follow.

And they come again:  the tears.

The falling tears like a non-stop waterfall.

And there comes again, too:  the dryness.

And vice versa.

Tears and dryness; dryness and tears.