PROVIDENCE – ConvergenceRI is taking a planned seasonal break and will send out the next edition on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. [Odds are good, however, that there will be another edition of ConvergenceRI published on Monday, Dec. 16, given how quickly the Earth keeps spinning and spinning these days.]

As ConvergenceRI moves forward, four months into its 12th year of publishing, the weekly digital news platform continues to gain traction in the marketplace, expanding conversations and convergence across networks, neighborhoods, communities – and industry clusters. We are about to enter our teenage years, when there always seems to be a bit of awkwardness attached to standing up and in speaking out.

I want to offer my sincere thanks and gratitude to everyone who has helped ConvergenceRI to travel on its path toward success, rewarding my decision to choose the road less traveled when the publication was launched in September of 2013. It has sometimes been a bumpy, turbulent journey, but one that has always proven to be rewarding. Thank you!

As we celebrate the Earth rotating on its axis, turning away from darkness toward light again, we must remember that we are all connected, part of a larger family, with a need to rekindle our kindness to ourselves and to each other. I fervently hope that we continue to support each other as we skate on thin ice away from the apocalypse, toward a rebirth of wonder. Our connections to each other and to our neighborhoods promise to be sorely tested in the coming months.

The importance of sharing stories.  
Since I first began writing this seasonal column 12 years ago, I have chosen to illustrate it with a poster from Bread and Puppet, purchased nearly four decades ago, when I attended the annual iconic summer festival held in Glover, Vermont. The festival was held in the natural bowl-like amphitheater carved out of the rural Vermont hills when a gravel bed was dug out of the ground for the construction of Interstate 91. The remaining hole formed a perfect natural amphitheater in which to stage an outdoor circus of performers, puppets, and sideshows – and to offer free, freshly baked bread with an aioli spread. [It turns out that neuroscientist and researcher Davi Bock now lives in Glover. See link to ConvergenceRI story, “The arc of collaboration and shared datasets.”]

The illustration, a block print on white cotton cloth, the borders stitched together in an uneven, tilting rectangle, featured the word “STORY” in all caps, above an illustration of a chair and a yellow, four-pointed star, set against an azure background, within a thick black border. Call it a rural version of René Magritte’s symbolism, where nothing seems to align except the desire for narrative.

The poster had always captured, for me, the juggling act that is involved in storytelling [and in journalism]: the storyteller is a participant, an observer, and a narrator, requiring nimbleness.

Storytelling is as much about listening as it is about speaking, much the same way that music is about the quiet spaces between the notes being played, and painting is always about the temperatures of the colors as they collide on canvas.

As the calendar year of 2024 spins to a close and we look ahead to next year, we are being forced to invent new traditions, to improvise new stories, to develop new ways to stay connected while being cautious enough about maintaining our social distances. We must relearn how to carry our dreams on our backs.

Two years ago, on a whim, I gifted the framed poster to a pediatric resident who had been recruited to practice medicine in Burlington, Vermont. Instead of hanging on a wall everywhere I have lived – in Washington, D.C., in Montague Center, Mass., in Manchester, Vt., in Newport, R.I. in Barrington, R.I., and in Providence, R.I., the poster now has a new and different home, with a new vantage point from which to inspire young storytellers in Vermont. There is wisdom in letting go, in sharing, and in encouraging new stories to blossom and to bloom.

“Oh, the places you’ll go,” read the tattoo on the instep of the hostess’s foot at Maven’s Delicatessen, quoting the refrain from the Dr. Seuss book, mostly hidden by the flat she was wearing. Her eyes had come alive with sparkle and delight as she helped two young customers choose their free comic books.

Her stint as a hostess, it turned out, lasted only a few weeks. But the promise of a good story remains, one that ConvergenceRI would still be curious to hear, particularly knowing the rest of the Dr. Seuss lyric:

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go...”

The concept of creating an engaged community of readers, with subscribers urged to share the content of ConvergenceRI across their numerous platforms – with friends, colleagues, and collaborators – is all about the sharing of stories, our most valuable personal possession, choosing a path toward connectivity. 

It is the idea that everyone lives in the same neighborhood, no matter where we may reside. What does that mean?

The value of belonging    
Recognition of the value that ConvergenceRI’s reporting brings to the public conversation is perhaps another measure of what it means to be a connected member of an engaged community.

Particularly when it comes to the ongoing crisis caused by the shortage of primary care providers in Rhode Island, a story that ConvergenceRI has been reporting on, it seems, for the last several years.

Last year at this time, Attorney General Peter Neronha tweeted out: “Appreciate @RichardAsinof excellent and in-depth coverage of all things healthcare.”

This year, the Community Care Alliance presented ConvergenceRI with the “Advocacy in Action” award “in recognition of accuracy in reporting [on] health care, social services and behavioral health concerns related to neglected and marginalized populations,” and for “dedication in directly addressing policy matters on behalf of people that often feel unseen and have no voice politically.”

In response, the Attorney General wrote: “Well deserved – no better coverage of health care and related issues than by @RichardAsinof – and what a distinguished career!”

Letting go of ego    
To be honest, the recognition that ConvergenceRI receives does not matter as much as the satisfaction in creating a platform for storytelling in Rhode Island, allowing for different voices to be heard.

•    Being able to share the voice of Katy Linwood, launching the first sobriety column in Rhode Island in a news platform.
•    Two in-depth interviews with Butler Hospital’s Dr. Linda Carpenter, talking about her pioneering neuroscience research efforts to develop new treatments for depression.
•    An interview with Angela Ankoma, director of the Equity Leadership Initiative at the Rhode Island Foundation.
•    An exit interview with Miriam Weizenbaum, who had served for five years as chief of the Civil Division at the R.I. Attorney General’s Office.
•    An in-depth interview with Dr. Michael Wagner, CEO of Care New England, talking about the challenges facing Rhode Island’s second largest health care delivery system

The narrative hiding in plain sight    
We are still living in a time of great peril, both from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 1.2 million people in the U.S. since March 1, 2020, and the autocratic plague that has infected our democracy, in the form of former President Donald Trump being elected President in 2024.

For the past four years, everyone’s personal and political stories have converged around the coronavirus pandemic, disrupting almost all of our accustomed patterns of behavior and discourse.

Our own personal stories are still the most valuable possession we have, and the act of sharing those stories is what makes us more human, attempting to survive in an inhumane world, they become the glue that holds us together.

I will continue to persevere, if you will promise to do so, too.

Richard Asinof is the editor and publisher of ConvergenceRI, which launched on Sept. 23, 2013.