Winsome Words

Somewhere in all the words are real people. We write with care and love and hugs and affection and phrases that can sound trite, or not. We write that we may connect. We write with a sense that the other will chew on our words; (will masticate.) Ha! We hope that we will reach the other. We trust that they will understand. (Diction matters.) And thereby, in the solipsistic stylization of our affect we hope the effect will be enduring. We write to send love, care, thought, and well-wishes for the others' welfare. Yet we care not too much about spelling or homonyms or phonemes. We trust all will be forgiven. Because somewhere in all the words are real people.

Death brings on that bereft feeling of never hearing from a person again. Little deaths occur month after month as time slips into years and one thinks about the loss of contact from so and so, or him and her. We are creatures of the moment. And so, we tell what's happening 'now'. That we were in Ottawa once is interesting, to me. We saw the Canadian History museum, visited the Houses of Parliament, and went to a maple-syrup farm. Yet the more detail, the less you may identify. My words may lose you; though somewhere in there is the real me. We are mirrors of each other. We reflect that which we know. And we keep behind our backs the things the other does not see. Death is like that. It takes away the chance yet once more to be able to peer into the other's eyes, and to see the soul. (When shall one never again hear the (last) words of the other? Hm?)

Words are such constructs. We fixate on meanings. The soul is named, so it must exist. So too must Santa. And so forth. Constructs make up our mythologies. Yet history has made a mockery of the immanent beliefs of the Greeks, and then the Romans, and then the Celts, and the Zulu. Their gods have lost power. Beliefs have eroded. Words denoting cherished entities have devolved from adulation to mere intellectual apprehension. We no longer recall the Pantheon. We no longer have reference or deference. Yet in the present we now co-exist with words that give other meaning and import, (despite the avowed intention of some to have those self-same contentions overthrown). OMG! The constructs of our times are imminent iconoclastic impulses toward the dissolutions of eminence. We are in, 'The Iconoclastic Age'! (as hereby given coinage.)

Names for things appear to bring them to life. Kathmandu can be found. So can Timbuktu! But Xanadu is sadly no longer. Yet all of history precedes us, and within the scope and content of its passage we each have had the seeds of progeny that have brought us, willy-nilly, to this place, you and me, (or, "I, and Thou," as Martin Buber would have it). Children become adults.

Trouble is, there are so very many things to know. For some, there are so very many concepts to refute! There are (hierarchical) rungs to climb in the metaphors and analogies of life. But taking on yet one more rubric can be like taking on an accretion of mere facts, rather than being given the wings to soar to the next levels. Words. They can make or break me. Familial words. (That everyone has a Mummy and Daddy certainly does not make all parents the same. Even Brothers and Sisters applies, usually, to The Chosen.)

Words. Big ones are off-putting. Small ones can be paltry. Thing is, words between us are about things, people, and ideas. We apportion the subjects according to our own proclivities. But most frequent is the weather, the immediate, the sense of an other's health, well-being, and welfare, and then the mention of places been, places to go, and the feeling of missing the other (or why write at all?) And in all of these words, somewhere, are the real people. Writing about it all. You?