Words (Imbolc 2014)

Words (Imbolc 2014) - a reading (on YouTube)

Years flow by in much the same cycle as nature. Some years, the fall acorns in our front oaks are light, other years heavy. One year, they filled up our neighbor's pickup bed. A few years ago, they were still raining down in December, something we’d never seen before. The fullness of each season is determined by unremembered events many months before. How cold was the previous winter? How wet was the previous spring?

Like those acorns, my writing goes in cycles, some lean years, some fat. Some years, I fill up notebooks and index cards with a bounty of excess, others I’m lucky to post handful of essays. Each time I sit down to create a new piece, the process is the same. After the initial excitement and inspiration, I come to a point where I hate everything I’ve written, where I want to throw it all away, where I think the piece will never come together. Eventually, it does but not before its time.

On days like that, I’ve learned to still my mind and let it wander until over-shy words creep in to fill the surrounding silence. Sometimes they surface in the memory of a long, lost vocabulary word. Other times, in snippets of dialog echoing through my head.

Everything begins with words. They form the rich loam in which I plant my ideas. I spot interesting usages in articles. I run across rich histories perusing my dictionary. I seek intriguing alternatives by consulting my thesaurus. I can spend hours surfing through sources like some people browse the web. Many words, like wine, need to be rolled along the tongue to be fully appreciated. Some words blend and mellow with age while others sour to vinegar if left too long unused.

Words written not spoken. Spoken words evaporate once uttered, scattering like a flock of winter starlings, or sometimes their restless companion crows, a murder or a murmuration. A few stragglers cling to memory here or there, forming a pattern or a stain but rarely a complete picture. Written words develop and endure, comforting me for many years before their edges become yellow and worn with age, and are eventually discarded.

I shroud myself in words. They are my blanket. They provide my warmth, my solace, my insulation from the cold, harsh world surrounding me. Words are my thoughts, my ideas and ideals, my identity. They are the glue binding together the book of this fragile, contradictory personality. Words form my cocoon, my chrysalis as I change and grow beneath them. They protect me at my most fragile. They console me as I age. One day words will bury me. And be buried with me.

The beginning of each new year reflects my writing process. As I impatiently await the first blossoms of spring, I lay out goals and inspirations, map out stories and ideas. Carried with the cold at Imbolc, there is electricity in the air as the energy for new and colorful creations swells the roots beneath the snow. To the outside eye it looks like nothing much is stirring. But like the lambs lingering in their mother’s wombs, unseen words shift below the surface, restlessly awaiting the right moment to emerge. 

© 2014 Edward P. Morgan III