Tuesday, April 13, 2010

WORDLY AFFAIRS

I have a funny relationship with words. And I use the term “relationship” pointedly. I love words. I love to chew on each one almost individually when I write; handling the letters to see if they are the right fit to make the overall picture just so. When they come together — sometimes just the way you imagine they might, they paint such a beautiful picture. I often hesitate, though. I worry that I’ll choose the wrong words to express myself, either in writing or in speaking, and that I’ll give the wrong impression. Or maybe the intentions of my words will go astray, and I’ll be misunderstood; or they will cause hurt or pain. This often gives me pause, and I lose the will to write or speak them.

I take words seriously — words I read, words people use to express themselves. They mirror peoples’ innermost thoughts when spoken sincerely. Sometimes they mask. Others they shield. And they reflect a person’s past; how they were raised; where they come from. I love to place a person’s origins by their inflection. I also enjoy listening to “expressions of the day” work themselves into daily speech. I distinctly remember the “paradigm shift” phase of the 90s. I took personally the term “Generation X,” and I recently came across the word “re-purpose,” which I’m finding all kinds of ways to work into my daily dialogue.

And committing words to paper is such a heady exercise for me. I have a checkered past with them. Shortly after graduating with my journalism degree I worked at a network affiliate in Columbus, Ohio. One day I was responsible for the “Chyrons,” the text you read below a broadcast telling you who, what, where, when and why. I misspelled Los Angeles. I believe I wrote "Los Angelas." Oops. No one caught the error on time; not me, not the chyron tech. So up it flew. That incident, along with a string of other word-related issues, caused me to re-think my desire to work in broadcast journalism. Later I worked in a small public relations firm where it was made clear your paycheck would be docked if you cut, spliced or diced your press releases. I remember writing a poem about commas around this time, struggling daily with the stylebook. Commas can cut words like a knife, or make them flow past your conscious like a lazy river gently strolling by. (My kids love that book about commas, “Eats, Shoots & Leaves.” It's a good read, regardless of the reader's age.) The comma poem came about the time I fell in love with the “m” dash. It looks like this — and gives me physical time and space to pause and collect my thoughts without committing to the grammar. Maybe it’s my band-aid, but it heals what ails me — so I keep using it.

I find it funny how I often struggle to express myself vocally, but give me a keyboard or a pen, and thoughts flow right out of me. I’m simply more comfortable navigating my emotions through the written medium. I think I feel EXPOSED sometimes when trying to vocalize my thoughts. It feels better to me to put them in black and white, rather than floating them through the air only to be swallowed by the universe. And the feel and smell of words on paper, in books, is something I relish. I’m slow to commit to ever converting to e-books.

Books are such a passageway; dream vehicles for the imagination, or simply whim fulfillers. My husband and I have a bad habit of collecting them. So much so, we tend to tip the scale on the weight of our household goods right up to the limit. Every time we move, the library gets a big donation from us. The kids have gotten into the same habit. We always love going to the library. It's one of the first things we find when we move to a new place. It feels like you’re getting treasures for FREE. I don’t see how that experience measures up, electronically. Libraries hold such a weighty feeling of possibility. I visited the Library of Congress last year, and was in awe of the system by which your desired book is delivered from the vaults above down to you on ground level. It feels like you are the only one with the golden ticket when it finally arrives just for you, if only for two weeks.

I heard a report on NPR today that libraries are in jeopardy of becoming redundant. It seems libraries and post offices are flying the same path of fate. Are the housing and shipping of words no longer necessary? Will words transcend and travel, as well as be stored safely in the electronic universe? I suppose they already are. I read somewhere there are approximately 50,000 blogs posted every day. So this tells me there is significance in this transition. But what does it mean? Do we all feel better sending words out into space, than delivering them in person? Are we reaching each other? Will they be available for future and repeated use?

1 comment:

  1. You'd like Tibetan Buddhist teachers....VERY particular about words so as to be very clear about what is being communicated. Clear. Super clear. No room for getting it wrong. I may not understand what they are saying, but at least I can't make it mean what I want it to mean!

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