The Life-Giving Power of Words

In my last blog entry, I wrote at length about the loss of someone who'd once been very dear to me and whose death I found out about in the worst possible way. It took awhile before I realized that writing that entry had helped me feel a little better. As the days passed since then, I came to appreciate the power that words have to keep not only a person's memory alive, but also his or her essence. Somehow, writing the person's name and then reading and rereading it gives more revivifies the memory, almost as though I could pen or speak J. alive again by just those simple acts.

Of course, it doesn't work that way. But I think back to the biblical passage which reads "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." (John 1:14) Aside from the mystical and supernatural connotations of that passage beloved by Christians, the very idea that a word can create life is profound. And I often wonder if it has to do with the fact that some scientists believe that we do indeed create our own realities once we give them all names or speak them into existence in our minds, thus imparting life and immediacy to them. 

Oh, if it were only that easy to conjure up a lost loved by simply speaking his or her name! It's probably best that we can't, because there is no telling how far in the wrong direction such a power could take us. So I'll content myself with writing about those I've loved and lost and seeing them come to life on my computer screen or on a journal page.

There's another aspect of this process that also amazes me and that's when I go through old letters and cards and find the actual handwriting of someone I loved and who is not longer with me. It struck me particularly hard once when I found an old letter my mother had written me many years ago. Seeing her handwriting gave me a sensation that she was very close by, as if no time had passed since her passing and she was still readily available to me. 

There is so much of a person's spirit present in the words they etched out on paper, which now remains a testimony that yes, they really had existed once. And if the handwriting experts are right and no two people's handwriting styles ever match, then all the more reason to see a person in their writing. Those same experts also claim that much can be known about a person based on their particular writing style, which only adds to the belief that there is a sort of sacredness to anyone's handwriting, particularly if they are no longer with us. 

Creative writing is an art form by which we communicate in ways that are more elaborate and emotion-laden than, say, strict business writing or other types of formal communiques such as property deeds, office memos, or legal notices. And once again, there it is, the implication that, by writing, we can indeed create something, make it real and believable, make it felt. So that when I wrote about J. last week, I was in fact re-creating him for my own benefit without even realizing that I was doing just that. It was only later that I realized how much better I'd felt while I was setting down the timeline of our friendship and the years we spent together. Not only did that action being it all back to me, but I also got the sense that it had never really ended and that I could it going just by writing about it from time to time. If, by writing about it as well as about other people and things from my past that I've lost, I can continue to comfort myself until the time comes when I myself will leave this world, after which it will not longer be an issue. 

If there is indeed an afterlife and we will be, as so many believe (and as I like to believe) able to look up those loved ones, I'll be quite busy hunting up all those who've gone before me and who left vast empty spaces where their presences once were. 

In any case, I like the idea of having the ability to create merely with words. Maybe I can't reproduce the exact scenarios of particularly happy times or those individuals who once added substance to my life. But I can still derive some joy from watching them come to life again on my computer screen or on a journal page. 

And that will have to do. 

 

What Stories Are Made Of

Words are magical things. In them reside all our experiences, our thoughts, ideas, hopes, dreams, fears, and joys. In other words (pun intended), "words" sum up who we are. And there isn't a single word in any language that cannot stand on its own without needing to be embellished by others. All words began as sounds, and a sound can convey a great deal of meaning and emotion without any explanation at all.


We take words so much for granted. For in the course of a single day, we read, shape our thoughts, hear, or speak millions of them without giving a single thought to the role that each one of them plays in that process. And any writer knows that any piece of writing begins with a single idea, and that idea can be reduced to a single word. For even the most seemingly inconsequential word has meaning and purpose, on its own and when used with others, and not just nouns, verbs and adjectives. Articles, conjunctions, and prepositions all imply something by their very nature and how they are used in sentences. And even when stated alone, a single article--the, for example--has more to say than is intially apparent.


At its most fundamental, we know that "the" is an article. By itself, it means nothing, or does it? For the moment we say it, once, twice, three times, we realize that it DOES say something by implication. "The" immediately implies the need for another word, but what is that word? For starters, the choice of whatever word it implies is left entirely to the speaker or the writer. Thus, the word "the" opens up a possibility, an outcome, the existence of an object that the writer or speaker will eventually elaborate upon. From that point on, whatever new word that is associated with "the" will assign it a whole new meaning and purpose.


Now let's take a very familiar noun: cat. As soon as we hear, say, or write the word, we know instantly what we're referring to, for the word's basic meaning unstructs as to its attributes. So right away, we know we're not dealing with a dog, an elephant, or a snake. So that shifts our focus from all other creatures and onto a cat. Then, our minds take over, and we start remembering what we know about cats, which in some cases is more or less than others do. But we all know something, and that is what we bring to our understanding of the word "cat."


The natural question that follows is thus, "What about the cat?" This is where the author's or speaker's mind kicks in and starts attributing characteristics to the cat, and that is how ideas come together, through an immutable law of attraction. In order to grow in meaning, a single word must attract others or die. But it's not like a tree absorbing nutrients from the soil. It's more like one snowflake attracting others until it is no longer a single flake but an entire snow bank that has to be shovelled. Or to use a more fitting analogy--one building block is relatively useless unless others are added to it, which ultimately results in some sort of structure.


That is what writing is--starting with one word, one idea, and then adding others to it until it eventually takes on a life of its own as an entirely different entity from the one that gave it life. And in that way, writing is also a metaphor for everything that exists in this world that got its start in the very same way.


https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS