Quite a few years ago, a friend turned me on to a word of the year. It’s a word to focus upon with mindfulness while walking through three hundred sixty five days. A self-help technique? Sure. A change of habit? Absolutely. Sometimes, after reflecting on words, the significance of one over the other is quiet and internal. Sometimes the words are necessitated to counter balance the garbage in my head from previous days. This year, I had to look for the word.
The words we use are important. The words we tell ourselves and others have meaning. It unnerves me when people say they didn’t mean the words that dove off their tongues into pools of auricular paths. Words matter.
Matter - substance inconvertible with energy.
December was a very difficult month for me. It was full of words and actions that had me retreating to dark rooms of personal silence. I was suffocated in an abysmal entanglement of bafflegag. However, during this month, I was mindful of moving forward with writing. There is an anomalous thing that occurs in my brain when I am feeling hopeless. My brain counter-balances to equipoise with this idea of legacy. I get this overwhelming internal push that all that I’ve done cannot be all that I do. It could be a survival skill that is filed away in the trenches of my mind, and until I rip all the other useful pages of my thoughts to shreds, I forget that I need to leave behind something more than I have provided. It also could be introspective personal browbeating. Regardless, it kicks in when I’m lowest. And frequently in these lowest times, the need to write becomes this unstoppable force. I don’t always honor that need, but this past month, I did.
I wrote quite a bit and read quite a bit and sought information to fill more pages of the files in my brain.
And then I started hearing words relating to foundation. In positive and negative tones, I heard people asking me for more or expressing gratitude for that which I had the strength to provide them. I reflected on the word foundation for a few days. I thought I need to start building this foundation in order to advance my writing to the point I can flip my days from numbers to words, which is my intention. But that has been the intention for years. And I realized while I was working through how to properly convey the image of laboring on this foundation, it occurred to me that the foundation is done. I’ve been throwing words out around me long enough. I’ve been stinging them together with coherent mortar and punctuation. I have words I cannot recall writing, but in [re]reading, I can see that I have been tamping down a foundation. It is time to make moves that will encourage a burgeoning of proliferation in story and thought. I am ready.
So the word support presented itself to me. I feel I am not enough support for those who need me. I have been told I had not provided support to others and have been called selfish. I have felt unsupported by myself and even beat the parts of me missed by others. Support is more than an unwavering base.
I went to those crazy cats, merriam and webster to get their opinion on the word support. They gave me the following:
*transitive verb
-to endure bravely or quietly; bear
-to promote the interests or cause of
-to uphold or defend as valid or right: advocate
-to argue for
-to assist
-to act with
-to bridge
-to provide substantiation
-to pay cost of
-to provide basis of existence
-to hold up
-to maintain at desired level
-to keep from fainting, yielding, or losing courage; comfort
-to keep something going
*noun
-the act of supporting
-assistance
-one that supports
-sufficient strength
After reflecting on this comprehensive list of words in its description, I understand that support is not just tamping the heavy stuff down to climb upon. It’s not the foundation, but a breath as flexible as a rope bridge allowing sway as we cross the cavernous gorge of experience. It’s the buttress providing protection from external elements so that security can be maintained within. It’s a reception to carrying weight while those in need are fatigued.
I have neither given nor received these things.
In choosing these words, I always reflect on my first. Vouchsafe. I’m so in love with the reciprocity of the idea of vouchsafing. To vouchsafe is to give freely and take gladly. Many times those who give have difficulty taking. Likewise, those who take have difficulty giving. To vouchsafe is to give AND receive.
This year’s word for me is going to be another reciprocal idea I need to nourish.
The words we use are important. The words we tell ourselves and others have meaning. It unnerves me when people say they didn’t mean the words that dove off their tongues into pools of auricular paths. Words matter.
Matter - substance inconvertible with energy.
December was a very difficult month for me. It was full of words and actions that had me retreating to dark rooms of personal silence. I was suffocated in an abysmal entanglement of bafflegag. However, during this month, I was mindful of moving forward with writing. There is an anomalous thing that occurs in my brain when I am feeling hopeless. My brain counter-balances to equipoise with this idea of legacy. I get this overwhelming internal push that all that I’ve done cannot be all that I do. It could be a survival skill that is filed away in the trenches of my mind, and until I rip all the other useful pages of my thoughts to shreds, I forget that I need to leave behind something more than I have provided. It also could be introspective personal browbeating. Regardless, it kicks in when I’m lowest. And frequently in these lowest times, the need to write becomes this unstoppable force. I don’t always honor that need, but this past month, I did.
I wrote quite a bit and read quite a bit and sought information to fill more pages of the files in my brain.
And then I started hearing words relating to foundation. In positive and negative tones, I heard people asking me for more or expressing gratitude for that which I had the strength to provide them. I reflected on the word foundation for a few days. I thought I need to start building this foundation in order to advance my writing to the point I can flip my days from numbers to words, which is my intention. But that has been the intention for years. And I realized while I was working through how to properly convey the image of laboring on this foundation, it occurred to me that the foundation is done. I’ve been throwing words out around me long enough. I’ve been stinging them together with coherent mortar and punctuation. I have words I cannot recall writing, but in [re]reading, I can see that I have been tamping down a foundation. It is time to make moves that will encourage a burgeoning of proliferation in story and thought. I am ready.
So the word support presented itself to me. I feel I am not enough support for those who need me. I have been told I had not provided support to others and have been called selfish. I have felt unsupported by myself and even beat the parts of me missed by others. Support is more than an unwavering base.
I went to those crazy cats, merriam and webster to get their opinion on the word support. They gave me the following:
*transitive verb
-to endure bravely or quietly; bear
-to promote the interests or cause of
-to uphold or defend as valid or right: advocate
-to argue for
-to assist
-to act with
-to bridge
-to provide substantiation
-to pay cost of
-to provide basis of existence
-to hold up
-to maintain at desired level
-to keep from fainting, yielding, or losing courage; comfort
-to keep something going
*noun
-the act of supporting
-assistance
-one that supports
-sufficient strength
After reflecting on this comprehensive list of words in its description, I understand that support is not just tamping the heavy stuff down to climb upon. It’s not the foundation, but a breath as flexible as a rope bridge allowing sway as we cross the cavernous gorge of experience. It’s the buttress providing protection from external elements so that security can be maintained within. It’s a reception to carrying weight while those in need are fatigued.
I have neither given nor received these things.
In choosing these words, I always reflect on my first. Vouchsafe. I’m so in love with the reciprocity of the idea of vouchsafing. To vouchsafe is to give freely and take gladly. Many times those who give have difficulty taking. Likewise, those who take have difficulty giving. To vouchsafe is to give AND receive.
This year’s word for me is going to be another reciprocal idea I need to nourish.
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