City 1: Providence, RI ~ Gratitude~

GRATITUDE~ feeling grateful… I kicked off my Finding Your Force 20-city tour and the first stop was Providence, Rhode Island.

Moments up to the reading I was incredibly nervous. THESE PEOPLE KNOW ME. These people knew my history. A lot of these people no my intimate story because they were either, next door neighbors during my teenage years or colleagues when I worked for the Providence school Department. These were people who are my extended family… cousins, spiritual sisters and my ex husband…

It was such a beautiful evening. To look into the eyes of every person sitting there was something incredible for me. The Q & A portion was the part I enjoyed the most. That’s when everyone really went in… there was no holding back… so I gave the audience (my family) all of me. It’s the least I could do… for everything Rhode Island has given me I say THANK YOU!

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Dear Rhode Island,

We have had a love/hate relationship since I was 15 years old. There have been so many moments I despised you. Disliked everything about you. The clean streets, the eerie quiet of Warwick. The feeling that I was no longer a city girl because my parents forced us to move to the country… that’s what I really believed that I was living in some backwards town. Where I would never progress. Where I would never be anything.

And then much later I understood something…

Maybe Rhode Island wasn’t so bad. Perhaps the move to Warwick, RI was exactly what I needed to transform me into the woman I was born to become. And so as I grew up Rhode Island and me well… we’ve been through all kinds of amazing and not so amazing things together…

Like graduating Pilgrim High School
Like getting pregnant right after graduating

To Warwick, Cranston, Providence, Johnston, Narragansett and especially Newport I say thank you.

Thank you for being the journey that was being prepared for me. It was amazing to be in RI yesterday.

Thank you Carole and the staff at Books on the Square for hosting such a lovely reading. I will carry last night with me always.

Thank you to EVERYONE who attended…

Thank you for your constant love and support of my dream.

Thank you for allowing me to share my story with you.

Peace, light and LOVE,
Always Alicia