Words

My story...
Part 1 Part 2
Part 3 Part 4
Part 5 Part 6
Part 7 Part 8


It's funny how the really important things are hard to talk about. Not in the sense that I don't want to talk about them, but that in order to talk about them, I have to use words.

You're thinking, "ahh...yeah!"

What I mean is that you live this life and you have this experience and it IS... It is this thing - like when you make eye contact across the room with the one you love and the one you hope loves you back and...

BAM!

You know what I'm talking about - that LOOK. That's life - no words, just living. Only later (if you're very foolish like I have been) you will use words to talk about the look. You'll say "it was deep and revealing and longing and hopeful and vulnerable and..." And if you're like me, it will fall very short of actually describing what happened.

What's really weird is that it also affects what happened. At least in my world it does. The memory of the experience becomes colored with the words used to describe it. And the memory is no longer as sweet as it was before...before I scribbled all over it.

Not everything is that way. And words aren't bad - in fact they're very, very good.

But this is the dance I was dancing as I talked about my life at Baylor. I never really told you about my friends and how each of them drew out from me colors I never knew I had. I didn't tell you the deep things I learned from living life with them.

I kept looking for the right words.

But I never found them, so instead I described experiences and places and such. It's not that I don't want to tell you. It's that I can't...no matter how many and how great the words I use.

So, I'm sorry.

I guess I just need to remind myself that the primary purpose of me telling my story (in this case) was to tell myself the story. And I can still do that for myself without words.

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 2/06/2005 04:09:00 PM

 

Comments:

It's only words, but words are all I have... (sorry, song lyrics)
It's so twoo. Like trying to express gratefulness with the lame words Thank You. It just doesn't cut it sometimes.. but it's what we got. I'm glad you're writing your story. You're not done I hope!!? :o)

# by:  Captainwow : 10:02 PM

 

Yep, I know exactly what you mean. The magic is lost in the daylight.

There's a fine line between the need to express and the need to retain the treasure in our hearts. But even when it isn't verbalized, it still gives glimpses to the world through our lives.

# by:  Pat : 11:21 PM

 

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