My birthday was yesterday. It was number 60. That sounds bad enough until you put it in terms of me starting my seventh decade of life on earth, which is worse.
Don't know how I managed to stay alive so long, given everything that can go wrong over the course of sixty years. I could have been killed in an automobile wreck many times, and in fact I walked away from a car crash last July that totaled my SUV. I could have died in an airplane crash, because for many years I did a huge amount of traveling.
Maybe I could have been shot in a robbery, or a random murder. You hear about that all the time. For many years I hung out in some really bad areas of big cities like Washington, DC, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, to name a very few. Perhaps I could have been walking along on a sidewalk minding my own business when an out-of-control truck jumps the curb and creams me. Or some really huge object falls on top of me. These things happen, you know.
Or maybe I could have contracted some terminal medical condition like AIDS, cancer, or some brain or heart malady that would have ended my life. You hear about people who don't make it to their thirtieth birthday let alone their sixtieth. Or maybe I could have been one of those people whose time has just run out on them, and they drop over dead for no apparent reason, or never wake up one morning due to "natural causes."
It's true, a lot of random things could have happened to prevent me from reaching this milestone, but somehow it didn't. Maybe it's just a huge amount of luck or someone watching over me, but I managed to make it this far with most of my original equipment still intact.
I have not only survived, but I have thrived.
My life so far, and it's still a continuing, evolving story as I start a new chapter, has been a life of adventures, challenges, and learning experiences, with the occasional mistake or misstep thrown in to keep me in line or teach me something. I feel I have been extraordinarily lucky in innumerable ways, but most importantly I have the great privilege and luxury of living my life exactly the way that I want to live it.
I've always been one to buck the trend of society when it comes to assigning gender roles and what people should "do" with their lives. I have never married nor had children, and I never wanted to do either. At the age when most people were getting married and raising families, I was too busy getting my career started and traveling and having loads of fun. And I honestly don't regret that for one second. People sometimes say to me, "You don't know what you have missed by not getting married and having children." Maybe, but I prefer to think that I have been able to have an entirely different set of experiences in my life that didn't involve marriage and children, which have enriched and illuminated my life just as much but in other ways.
I never would want to be stuck in a loveless marriage with children who despise and disrespect me. I never wanted to have to deal with school activities or sporting events or college expenses. I was never particularly interested in having to remember birthdays of in-laws or wedding anniversaries or who we're spending Christmas with this year. I never wanted to have to go through a divorce, when a relationship that started off so well turned toxic and died. Call me selfish, but I knew very early on in my life what I wanted and didn't want, and I didn't let anything or anyone talk me out of my chosen path in life. And that, in many ways, is the most important thing I have ever done.
Showing posts with label meaning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meaning. Show all posts
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Sunday, April 5, 2009
They're Only Words....
I am an unabashed lover of language and words. Words are like mini-paintings to me, little nuggets (or capsules or bullets) of whatever emotion you need to convey. They can be elegant vessels of beauty or hateful globules of venom, whichever you want. They can be as focused and precise as a laser beam, all deep rich color and concentrated singularity, or they can be as broad and expansive as a rainbow across a stormy sky. Words are tools that can be used to build or to destroy, with equal facility. They can float and glide across your lips like the breeze that carries the fragrance of orange blossoms everywhere this time of year, or they can be spat across the room like little darts of vengeance and animosity. Here are a few of my favorite words, and some of the reasons why they fascinate me.
"Vituperative" (adj., verbally abusive) - This is one of those words which you can use just about anywhere and not a lot of people will know what you mean but it will sure make you sound intelligent. And in this style-over-substance culture we live in, often appearance will do just as well as reality. You can wildly misuse this word and no one will really notice or care. You can say, "Wow, these fresh strawberries sure are vituperative," and someone will say, "No kidding, try them with whipped cream!" Or, "That dress makes you look really vituperative," and they say, "Stop it, you're just saying that to make me feel good." Nothing is more fun than using an obscure word with a very strong negative meaning and have someone think the exact opposite.
"Desiccated" (adj., dried up, dehydrated) - This is a word that says what it means. It always makes me think of some bleached bones half-buried in the desert dust with the arid, hot wind blowing across them. I remember first encountering the word as a child reading an Isaac Asimov story, where two scientists got into a heated argument and one scientist called the other a "desiccated old fossil." At the time I thought it was the most awesome insult I had ever heard and the receiving scientist would be scarred for life and never recover. However when I used that phrase on actual people they were much less impressed.
USAGE NOTE: Words with a double-c in them should be avoided, e.g., "desiccated", "vaccine" and "saccharine". Words with a double-u in them are erudite and scientific-sounding, like "vacuum" or "continuum". But for God's sake STAY AWAY from words with a double-r-plus-h in them, like "catarrh", "diarrhea" and "hemorrhage".
"Quagmire" (n., a difficult, precarious, or entrapping position) - This is a word with a not-so-nice meaning that sounds like it should be really funny. It almost sounds like it should be "quackmire" and mean a meeting place for a social gathering of ducks. Someday when I complete my transformation into a cranky, ill-tempered old curmudgeon (something that people say will happen in about a week and a half) I'm going to tell everyone my name is Chester T. Quagmire, just to be disagreeable. I really like the word "curmudgeon", too, but we're going to let that one go for now.
"Lavender" (n., a pale purple color) - I like this word because I have so many pleasant memories of childhood connected to it. There was this children's song I learned early in Catholic school that had the words "lavender blue" and "lavender green" in it. I know "lavender green" is kind of nonsensical, but somehow in the context of the song it totally fit. I loved that song because it was one of the few songs the nuns taught us that didn't have some kind of religious reference to it. I also loved "My Country 'Tis Of Thee!" until I learned it was a total rip-off of "God Save The Queen!" As a child when I visited my grandmother her bathroom was a lavender color and she always had a bar of Camay soap near the bathtub. I loved the delicate, wistful floral scent of the soap. I associated it with her and I really loved my grandmother. She also had a bar of Palmolive soap near the sink, which is the only thing that could have made it more perfect. Lavender, the color and the word, is all good to me.
"Pristine" (adj., not spoiled, corrupted, or polluted) - A simple little word with a precise, uncomplicated meaning. Says what it means. All fresh, clean and natural, like a pristine lake or stream, or an unspoiled pine forest. One of my favorite songs of all time is Simon and Garfunkel's "Scarborough Fair/Canticle." This song is absolutely pristine and perfect. It also has a line which goes, "tracing a sparrow on snow-crested ground". That is awesomely pristine. Some words are just perfect little packages, just the way they are.
These are just some of the words I love, I'll be posting more on an occasional basis as I think of them. Maybe someday I will be known as a desiccated old curmudgeon with lavender underwear caught in a pristine quagmire of his own vituperative(ness). Just thinking of that sentence almost made my head explode but it was so worth it.
"Vituperative" (adj., verbally abusive) - This is one of those words which you can use just about anywhere and not a lot of people will know what you mean but it will sure make you sound intelligent. And in this style-over-substance culture we live in, often appearance will do just as well as reality. You can wildly misuse this word and no one will really notice or care. You can say, "Wow, these fresh strawberries sure are vituperative," and someone will say, "No kidding, try them with whipped cream!" Or, "That dress makes you look really vituperative," and they say, "Stop it, you're just saying that to make me feel good." Nothing is more fun than using an obscure word with a very strong negative meaning and have someone think the exact opposite.
"Desiccated" (adj., dried up, dehydrated) - This is a word that says what it means. It always makes me think of some bleached bones half-buried in the desert dust with the arid, hot wind blowing across them. I remember first encountering the word as a child reading an Isaac Asimov story, where two scientists got into a heated argument and one scientist called the other a "desiccated old fossil." At the time I thought it was the most awesome insult I had ever heard and the receiving scientist would be scarred for life and never recover. However when I used that phrase on actual people they were much less impressed.
USAGE NOTE: Words with a double-c in them should be avoided, e.g., "desiccated", "vaccine" and "saccharine". Words with a double-u in them are erudite and scientific-sounding, like "vacuum" or "continuum". But for God's sake STAY AWAY from words with a double-r-plus-h in them, like "catarrh", "diarrhea" and "hemorrhage".
"Quagmire" (n., a difficult, precarious, or entrapping position) - This is a word with a not-so-nice meaning that sounds like it should be really funny. It almost sounds like it should be "quackmire" and mean a meeting place for a social gathering of ducks. Someday when I complete my transformation into a cranky, ill-tempered old curmudgeon (something that people say will happen in about a week and a half) I'm going to tell everyone my name is Chester T. Quagmire, just to be disagreeable. I really like the word "curmudgeon", too, but we're going to let that one go for now.
"Lavender" (n., a pale purple color) - I like this word because I have so many pleasant memories of childhood connected to it. There was this children's song I learned early in Catholic school that had the words "lavender blue" and "lavender green" in it. I know "lavender green" is kind of nonsensical, but somehow in the context of the song it totally fit. I loved that song because it was one of the few songs the nuns taught us that didn't have some kind of religious reference to it. I also loved "My Country 'Tis Of Thee!" until I learned it was a total rip-off of "God Save The Queen!" As a child when I visited my grandmother her bathroom was a lavender color and she always had a bar of Camay soap near the bathtub. I loved the delicate, wistful floral scent of the soap. I associated it with her and I really loved my grandmother. She also had a bar of Palmolive soap near the sink, which is the only thing that could have made it more perfect. Lavender, the color and the word, is all good to me.
"Pristine" (adj., not spoiled, corrupted, or polluted) - A simple little word with a precise, uncomplicated meaning. Says what it means. All fresh, clean and natural, like a pristine lake or stream, or an unspoiled pine forest. One of my favorite songs of all time is Simon and Garfunkel's "Scarborough Fair/Canticle." This song is absolutely pristine and perfect. It also has a line which goes, "tracing a sparrow on snow-crested ground". That is awesomely pristine. Some words are just perfect little packages, just the way they are.
These are just some of the words I love, I'll be posting more on an occasional basis as I think of them. Maybe someday I will be known as a desiccated old curmudgeon with lavender underwear caught in a pristine quagmire of his own vituperative(ness). Just thinking of that sentence almost made my head explode but it was so worth it.
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