Tagged: puttingwordstogether

Why are we friends? We’re so different! You come from another state, another country, another culture. You’re older than me; you’re younger. You’re religious, and you—you’re political. You’ve made choices in your life that I can’t fathom. You’ve had things happen to you that I can’t relate to. You’ve done things I couldn’t or wouldn’t or wish I dared to do. You don’t have any children. You have too many. You don’t want any. You’ve got a baby; your kids are grown. You believe in things I could never swallow. You believe in things that go against my grain. You...

Once upon a time. Once. Really? Only once? Those words denote the beginning of a story but do you see how they hold the end in their hands? It was but it is no longer. Once it was, but now, it’s not. Once but never again. I wonder who used the words for the first time and if they knew what a weight they were investing them with. If we dwell too long or too often on what once was, how can we enjoy what we have now? What to do? How to capture and hold those ephemeral onces in...

It’s funny how envy works. Listening to the good news of a friend makes me envious sometimes. Not in the sense that I wish it were MY news, but just in the sense that I wish I had news, too. Even when you have things just fine, excellent in fact, it’s a weird feeling to find yourself envious of someone else. Not because you want whatever it is they have going on, but because they’re so excited about it and that feeling of excitement is such a rush that you are reminded of how fun it is. It’s much easier...

Bring up moving in conversation and it jump-starts things. People either love to do it or hate it with a passion, it seems. Even talking about packing and/or unpacking in conjunction with a trip raises all sorts of sympathetic flutters and groans of compassion. I’ve always liked packing and unpacking. There’s something very Christmassy about it. When it’s for a trip, packing is like wrapping up presents to give to yourself during vacation or traveling. And when it’s for moving, unpacking is all about opening great big boxes of presents you haven’t seen in awhile, and giving yourself the gift...

I envy people who have an instinctive ease with conversations…who can start them, keep them going, make them interesting. Even though I can hold my own, I don’t consider myself skilled at getting conversations rolling or keeping them afloat. My instincts are always to be the listener in any group, and not to be the one out there stating opinions or sharing anecdotes or telling secrets or even my side of things. Far too often, my conversation contributions are MENTAL: taking place in my head where only I can hear them. What I think is interesting about this, is that...

Do you think yourself beautiful? Are you pleased or, at least, at peace with your appearance? If not, what would you do to remedy it? Apply make-up? Straighten or curl or color your hair? Whiten your teeth? Lay yourself bare before a knife to correct what nature deemed your lot? Remove, add, lengthen, shorten, dye, reduce, enlarge, change. Catching part of a documentary on the increase of cosmetic surgery in China, I was appalled and mesmerized by the young girls who were undergoing operations to lengthen their legs. 6 months of pain and re-learning completely how to walk (no mention...

I was kind of yanking my brother’s chain when I wrote yesterday’s post, and obviously, since he’s one of the few that hears the tone of my voice in his head when he reads my words, simply BECAUSE he knows me (too) well, I figured he would get that. See, it wasn’t really him (he?) that sparked the post I wrote, but it was he (him?) that sent me the link to the essay that DID spark it, so he got sort of associated sideways and took the brunt of the blame, quite unfairly. Robin Hobb thinks what I do...