Words explain my world to me, and I’m guessing I’m not alone. What I mean is that every definition is steeped in memory of when I first learned the term.
A word is colored by the light I first read it by.
A word feels like a caress or a blow, carrying a memory of however it was first uttered along side my name, my body, my world. It is heard like my mother’s heartbeat in the womb, and like Tom Petty sneering me not to be a refugee.
When Genesis says and the word was God. I think it means, words are the way by which we categorize and box up our inexplicable experiences, so we may know ourselves and others.
A suitable definition of consciousness is self-reflection. Words give us this capacity.
Without words, there is simply being and doing. With words, there is being good or bad, being Elizabeth or someone else. Doing a task, or undoing an institution. Judgement. Counting. Wanting. This for you and that for me….
Words are personal, and trigger my being like a wisp of a breeze, or like the crack of a whip. They tap me, and draw my awareness out to meet them. But a word is just a symbol, black lines on a white screen. Scribbles.
Today, I read a new word: chthonic.
It was perfect. My feelings fit it, or it fit my feelings. There is no telling the difference. The inner and outer feel as one. They are whole. The arrow between the two…. this little word
______________
Becoming literate.
