I like words. They have a bumbling earnesty - a serious and well intentioned commitment to sharing meaning, to dividing it into chunks and sorting and delivering it, but they fail us when it comes to feeling. And they frown and mutter and group and regroup when we rail at them to do work that was never meant for them to do alone.
Still, they try, though we demand nothing less than alchemy, and they come up with good hearted inadequacies like "I'm sorry" or "I love you."
"Incompetents!" we grumble with flaming cheeks, and we marshall more of them: bigger, stronger, longer, older and wiser words, and we assign them ranks and roles and arrange them in squadrons. But when they march out (and so often stumble), don't we always look at the listener - at the Eyes, who have been laughing all along? In one glance: telepathy.
I like this. As soon as you say squadrons I picture them lining up in their ranks and saluting me. A funny image, I wonder which words would be generals and commanders and which ones would be the lazy smoking soldiers in the back, not really paying attention. This is also the proof as to why so much more can be accomplished in person! Eye contact is everything.
ReplyDeleteThanks Megan! I like the idea of lazy smoking soldier words. I never thought of the slackers. Maybe they're the really abstract terms that don't seem to mean anything.
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