According to Alexa...

"Words are the basic building blocks of language"

(If you’d like to listen, tap the arrow and you’re on your way…)

I love language. It’s subtleties, nuances, brashness, its mellifluence, and myriad other things about it, but most of all its malleability. Of course, there are language rules but never having been good at adhering to any rules I felt over the top, I am willing to break as many as I can the further into this writing journey I wander. Over the years, there are words I have discovered that have stuck. They’ve lingered around, seeped in, and become a part of my subconscious linguistic cloud.

These favorite words are ones that make my heart skitter and belly warm. They are particles of magic conjuring images and sensations. Emotion. They move me with their beautiful imperfections and the integration of these molecular colloquialisms into the language of life is its own form of poetry. 

The poetry of being or having been.

The poetry of joy, of ache,

of simplicity, of the fleeting

intangibility of a moment, of time

passing. These are important words,

words that tether and release, bear witness

to where we've been, that carry us forward in lightness...there is gravitas

and giddiness, the very evidence of existence.

Boops

Pamps

Brefskast

Pwillow

Yonyon

Happyparty

My guess is those were not what you were expecting? 

According to Alexa, “Words are the basic building blocks of language”.

“Boops, boops, boops.” Don, my husband, was muttering this to himself as he shuffled through his preparations to leave for work this morning. I smiled into my coffee mug because I knew exactly what he was looking for. His mutterings are those of a sixty-something, six-foot five hulk of a man, but what I heard was the elfin voice of a grandchild. What I saw in my mind’s eye was not my husband, but instead a snow suited, mittened, and scarved tow headed two-year-old looking for his own yellow boots. Pwillow has been a part of our familial vernacular for the better part of thirty years. and is referenced or recollected almost daily in this house. In each instance there is softness and sweetness. Same with yonyon and happyparty. My children are my own again with these words, as is their innocence and unbridled joy. Brefskast is only about ten years on around here but has proved its staying power, tenfold. I will never have pancakes without having brefskast.

None of these words will make a New York Times list or be unearthed in any ancient dictionary, yet they possess their own power. I time travel when I hear them, they make me feel joy, experience newness, and wonder, and see the beauty in our simple life in ways I couldn’t have imagined before.

I wonder if you have words that transport you? Ones that lack the import of literary permanence but influence your comings and goings with their own secret language. If so, I believe these words deserve our attention as much as, say, words like war, insurrection, and genocide because without the words that make our hearts skitter and bellies warm, we risk the crushing of our humanity under the unbearable weight of words the world uses freely. I also believe we need a ‘Dictionary of Joy”.  So, how about it? What words would you add to this “Dictionary of Joy”? Let’s build something beautiful with words today…

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We are far more permeable than we realize- taking in and pouring out- inspiring and expiring(think breathing)- and when we surround ourselves with others doing the same, breathing in and out their best we create a microcosm of symbiotic relationships deeply interconnected, thriving, growing.  Here’s a shortlist of what is keeping me breathing lately…

What Are You Sacrificing To The Algorithm? by

Seth Haines

Slow Your Breath Down by

Kris Camealy

Un-Epiphany by

Laura B.

Simile and Survival from

Poetry Unbound

and

Pádraig Ó Tuama

as well as his brilliant new book, Being Here: Prayers for Curiosity, Justice, and Love -it is pure oxygen.

And finally,

The Life-Changing Magic of Writing Haiku by

Beth Kempton {Life. This is it, friends.}

Now, off to think more words…

Susan

Everyone puts their pamps on one leg at a time, unless you are two- then you put two legs in one side and laugh your bottom off…