My Little Book of Words

Why I collect words, even in the moments for which there's no language at all

Full disclosure: this week’s newsletter was intended to be about something else. I had a plan and a draft ready to go, and then I got a text from a friend with some really shitty news. News for which there are no words. And that’s the only thing on my mind. So that’s the only thing I can write about.

Given my history, people often assume I’d be better at knowing what to say when someone else meets their before and after moment in life. But I’m a stumblebum like everyone else, rendered speechless by life’s audacious interruptions and blatant disrespect for our plans.

I met my own before and after nearly 12 years ago when my husband was assaulted on his walk home from a baseball game, and it was an unmistakable delineation: life would never be the same. I would never be the same. So it goes for others: You answer that phone call, receive the diagnosis, read the email, and your life is suddenly split in two.

Even as I processed that moment in writing, tried to articulate the chasm between my old and new existence, I understood the limitations of my art form. Words can only approximate the human experience. They can’t replicate it.

Still, I’m obsessed with words. They are my candy, my favorite plaything, my most cherished possession. I carry around a little book in which I collect the words that tickle my curiosity - words I wish to incorporate into my vocabulary and writing. The book is divided into parts of speech (verbs, adjectives, nouns) and I relish sitting with a beautiful piece of writing and mining it for its most glittering language.

I’m trying, more than anything, to become precise. But maybe I’m also just scared of losing my language.

Meet my little book of words

During my years as a caregiver, I learned just how much anxiety words can cause. Early in my husband’s recovery from aphasia, I began to notice a strange thing. When I witnessed him searching or stumbling for a word, my own nervous system became activated. I was worried he wouldn’t find the word he needed. Worried it would take so long that listeners would grow impatient. Worried I would undermine his progress by impatiently supplying it to him instead. A reflex began to develop. Words began to make me anxious.

Because aphasia also impacted his receptive language, I became acutely aware of my own speech and vocabulary. I opted for short words over multisyllabic tongue twisters. I favored simple sentences over complex ones. I dropped the subordinating conjunctions, indirect pronouns, and figurative language. I made everything as clear and direct as possible to avoid miscommunication. Miscommunication, I quickly discovered, made life hell.

It’s a skill that served me well as an elementary school teacher (if ever there was a setting for clear, direct language, it’s a classroom of small children). Yet, I experienced it as a loss - a shrinking of my intellectual capacity. Just as words had been ripped from my husband, I felt them slipping from my own grasp. It made me wonder: What is the impact of vocabulary on our imaginations? Can we breathe life into an idea if we don’t have the words to describe it? How do I preserve the words that paint life in technicolor?

There are so many brilliant words to choose from. Forget English for a moment; I’m slack-jawed by the precision in other languages. Take sobremesa, for example, a Spanish word meaning, “when the food has finished but the conversation is still flowing.”

Did you know there was a word for that?

Or, peiskos, a Norwegian word meaning, “to sit in front of a crackling fireplace and enjoy the warmth.”

Put together, these are essentially my favorite states of being alive (but go ahead and add gigil, a Tagalog word describing the feeling of overwhelming joy from seeing something cute; namely, my daughter’s feet).

These types of words come closer to expressing the human experience than the 10,000 ordinary ones that comprise our typical conversations. But how about a word that expresses the following?

What’s happening to you is utterly unfair. I hate it with every fiber of my being, and I’m so incensed by the faceless cause of this injustice that my brain is screaming from inside. Also, I’m just very, very sad because I love you a staggering amount. And like you, I’m scared.

That’s the word I needed yesterday. It’s the word I need every time I respond to someone’s before and after, but with probably 65 variations that accurately reflect the nuance of the situation.

But there is no word for this gravitational shift of emotions. No word to convey someone’s absolute significance to another. Nothing in my book of words can guide one through the carnage of incomprehensible bad luck.

For this, there is only silence. Presence. Prayer.

Mortality is a fact, and I’m keenly aware that my brain and I are in a race against time. My determination to grow it, change it, and strengthen it is at odds with the laws of biology. But I’m not ready to cede my words. Hell, I’m not ready to cede anything.

Instead, I’m letting the facts motivate me: Should I ever lose my words, I’ll know that I collected them to the best of my ability. That I played with them exhaustively, lined them up and rearranged them like a fleet of toy cars on proud display. That I used my gift while I still had it.

Maybe this is what we do for those navigating the terrible muck of life. We promise not to waste anything.

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More Wordsmithing Inspiration

Tattooed on my shoulder is a line of poetry by Emily Dickinson. Apparently, I could have just gotten this cool embroidered hoop from Etsy, but I’m nothing if not committed to language.

Emily was an avid word collector, even if she didn’t leave the house. And while I may be the last person to the Apple TV show, Dickinson, which came out in 2019, I’m tickled by the contemporary take and like to imagine the real Emily having had half the fun of her fictional character.