Words.
Many of my
oldest and most vivid memories revolve around them. Whether they were the
address that I repeatedly copied into my home-school kindergarten textbook, or
the basic French vocabulary words that my mom wrote on loose leaf and we
illustrated and hung like a border around the walls of our playroom, it seems
that words have always been a part of my psyche.
My wobbly
hand shaping letters and numbers with a dull pencil … 109 Riverside Drive…
A sloppy sun
with my mom's neat, cheery printing in the corner … le soleil.
Coloring the
computer-printed banners Grandma brought with her when she came to stay over for
a week or two every couple of years … Welcome
Home, Mom and Baby.
I remember
the first time I used written words to change my reality. It was afternoon nap
time and our creaky old house was the kind of silent that only those with
sleeping babies know. Apprehensive about making noise, but still annoyed at
having to take a nap at the very grown-up age of 4 or 5, I secretly penciled my
first sentence on crumpled loose leaf: "Why do I hat to go to bed." Then
I tiptoed out of my room to give it to my mother.
She graciously
accepted my magnum opus and carefully corrected my spelling and grammar.
But I didn't
have to go back to bed.
I never forgot
that lesson.
---
I also remember
the first time I said my husband's name.
Of course, I
didn't know it was his at the time.
I was ten
years old and wouldn't lay eyes on the man for almost another decade.
It was after
an evening service at church. My family had just started attending there, and
we were still getting to know the congregation. After sitting primly through
the sermon, we kids had whooped it up – wading in the icy stream behind the
building and throwing fallen apples at each other in the deepening twilight. I
remember that the light in our crowded minivan glowed orange, then faded with the
snaps and clicks of everyone putting on their seatbelts.
My father
asked us if we remembered meeting someone part of whose name meant "no"
in Old English. He meant René
– one of the parishioners he'd hired to work with him at his shop. But I
remembered another name.
Nathan.
When I said
it, the word tasted strange in my mouth. Thick, like someone stirring cookie
dough or kneading bread.
My dad
agreed that the name "Nathan" also fit his criteria. As I listened to
him explain that "nay" was another way of saying "no", I
had no idea that one day I would share my life with a man named Nathan.
Although I mulled
over many names of people I met in the coming months and often pored through
baby name books in search of unusual and exotic names for my pets, stuffed
animals, and fictional characters (I once had a hamster named Marcellus), that memory
is the only one I've retained of the first time I've ever said someone's name.
But that
doesn't mean that other names don't have particular associations.
Dave is a deep, quivering half-sound,
like a vibrating guitar string.
James sounds like wind chimes or
Christmas bells – clear and infinite.
Jane sounds like bells ringing too, but
tinnier, more like a doorbell or a phone.
Laura is also a bell, but a rich, single
peal instead of several smaller ones.
Alice is a colour – sky blue.
Not all
names and words hold strong associations for me. For those that do, I'm
influenced by the physical shapes of the letters themselves, by a word or
name's resemblance to other words, by a word's resemblance to the sound that it
makes, and by the person or circumstances that I associate a name or word with.
Sometimes it's a clear case of onomatopoeia (a word that sounds like a sound);
other times the connection is less clear.
Nine is associated with the minor keys
on a piano.
Triangles are always orange.
I think I have Journeys in Math to
thank for that.
Attack stands up straight
then springs forward, slavering.
Gnarled is as whorled and
knotted as the tree branches or hands it describes.
Sometimes, I
have to think for a long time before I realize where a particular association
came from.
For example,
every time I write the word scudding
(a word primarily associated with the movement of clouds across the sky), I
hear a dull "untz" like someone beat-boxing. This confused me for
quite some time, until I remembered Sonic II – a Sega GameGear video game that
my family owned when I was young. Sonic had to gather emeralds along his
journey to face Dr. Robotnik and rescue Tails. During the second level, Sonic
has to bounce on springs hidden in the clouds – springs that sound almost exactly
like "untz".
L-i-g-h-t-bulb.
(Gru impersonation.)
I think that
is what makes words so special. While dictionary definitions are stable enough
to allow us to communicate effectively, language itself is fluid and nuanced
and intensely personal.
When two
people are watching a movie, they may bring different emotions and perspectives
to the table, but they see and hear exactly same thing.
But when two
people are reading a book, they could be having two completely different
experiences.
As an
aspiring author, I try to make my readers see what I saw, feel what I felt, and
(in some of my more graphic posts) smell what I smelled.
But I will
always fail.
Because
words are at the same time universal and individual.
And that is
what makes them beautiful.
Are there
any words like that in your life?
