Meandering Through the Words by Liz Flaherty

I had to look up the word cabal this morning, because I'd never used it, and even context didn't clue me in on what it was. In truth, I should always look up words I don't know, because too often the person using them doesn't know what they mean either, so even context can really mess you up some. 

It sounds kind of silly, I guess, maybe even disingenuous, to say I love words, since I use so many of them. Some of them, like just and that and look, I use so often that when I do a global search of a manuscript and take out the unnecessary ones, I need to write a new chapter just to bring the book back to the length I want.

That might be an exaggeration. But not by much. 

When I was in high school--I think it was junior year--our literature class had to read Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Although I liked the wow factor of a young woman having an affair with a minister and carrying his child out of wedlock in the 17th century--after all, it would have been just as shocking in the middle of the 20th century and, of course, all Hester's fault--I hated the book. I still regret the six weeks we spent on it when we could have been reading something...readable. 

But I have to admit that even now I remember Hawthorne's overuse of the word ignominy and all of its derivatives. If he'd had global search abilities with his quill and rag paper, I'm sure he'd have used it a lot less. 

I try to understand why we read the things we read in class, why we were introduced to Shakespeare and why we read parts of Beowulf and the Iliad. It was to introduce us to classics. At the time, I thought it was to encourage us to love reading and learning and I couldn't understand why it fell so wide of the mark. I didn't like any of it. 

However, reading all kinds of books is what taught me I like reading genre fiction best. I don't particularly care if it changes my life. If I don't like it, I don't finish it--life is too short to read what I don't want to. (Case in point, I never read another Nathaniel Hawthorne book.) I read for entertainment and to learn things. Especially things I like to know that clarify other things. It's a wonderful chain, the learning one. 

I learned about seasonal disorder in a romance by Jackie Weger. I learned about the Iron Range and Minnesota's lakes in books by Kathleen Gilles Seidel. I learned about the 19th century in books written about it by people who did the research before they wrote them. 

If it were left to me, I would never have read most of the classics on my mental bookshelf at all. (Other than Louisa May Alcott--she's a whole life chapter unto herself. I'll spare you.) Except for the words I learned in them. I had to look them up and develop a wish to use them in drawing a picture a reader could see. Their writers used a plethora of words, and they never used one word when 56 of them would do. But they sure could draw those pictures. 

This was certainly the long way around from me having to look up the word cabal, wasn't it? I'm trying to find my point, and I think it's one I've made more than once. If you use words without understanding what they mean, you're telling lies. If you use words only to hurt someone or create a false picture of them, you become the villain of whatever story you're promoting. 

But if you learn from them, if you use them to explicate what you say and mean, they're like the gift that keeps on giving.  (No--I don't actually use the word explicate. I looked it up to be a showoff. You can do that, too!)

I hope when you read something that you enjoy and learn from it. Check sources. Quit in the middle if it's not making you happy. Have a great week. Be nice to somebody. 

Come see Nan and me at the Whyte Horse! 

"The tongue has no bones..." by Liz Flaherty

"The tongue has no bones, but is strong enough to break a heart. So be careful with your words." -Unknown

I have a fondness for words, which probably isn't much of a surprise to anyone. I have, in recent years, come to flinch from the cruelty of some of them. I learned to love being called a snowflake because before it became a universally loved and accepted pejorative term, it meant something beautiful that brought joy. 

I've learned not to resent stupid as much as I used to because I know I'm not. Calling  me that is likely to make me beam and say bless your heart and think of how...er...stupid you sound using words willy-nilly for the simple purpose of hurting someone. I figured this out just recently, when I was called stupid because of my opinion and decried for using good grammar by the same person in the same conversation. 

I was stung a few weeks ago when I read in more than one place that lives and opinions of the elderly had no relevancy. Not only because it shocks me every time I re-realize I am one of the elderly, but because I don't understand why anyone would say such a thing about someone else.

This morning on Facebook--yeah, I know, how did I ever write before Facebook?--I read this, written by Martha Floyd and used with permission. 

Only nine signatures. Today it took only nine signatures to sign my mom up for hospice, but those signatures felt like nine million. Those nine signatures were some of the hardest ones I’ve made. Those nine signatures said No more doctor visits, no more tests, no more needle sticks and no more working toward a goal to get better. Today we ordered the meds to “keep my momma comfortable.” Today the big truck pulled up and dropped off the needed furniture and oxygen. Tomorrow my beautiful momma turns 83. But today I signed her up for hospice. Tomorrow will be a special day just for my momma. But tomorrow will be another day wishing I never had to write those nine signatures. Tomorrow will be a birthday celebration filled with joy, laughter, family, friends…and tears. Please keep my family in your thoughts and prayers as we begin this journey together.

I've read those words several times since the first time. I swiped them from social media and sent Martha a message asking if I could use them. She responded in time for me to add them. I imagine she's busy. It's her mom's birthday. Her heart is breaking. I've been there, haven't you?--in that aching, shattered place where loss resides. 

Two families (that I know of) in the community have suffered double bereavements lately, leaving mourners' lives with huge empty spaces. I can't pretend to know how they feel because even in the broken place I just mentioned, grief is far too personal to claim someone else's as your own. But I am so sorry for their losses. For the silences and the emotional bruises that have to heal in their own time if they heal at all.

I started this talking about words. They are to me what music is to some people and art is to others. I've complained--again--about their cruelty when they're used only for the purpose of hurt. I've shared someone else's with admiration for Martha's eloquence. And, like every time I've ever visited a funeral home, I realize that I really don't know what to say. 

Which makes it all the more important that what I say doesn't hurt anyone. No, let me fix that, because the truth is we all say and do things that hurt other people. So maybe what's important is that we don't cause harm and hurt purposefully. Maybe it's recognizing that the old Love Story saying of "Love means never having to say you're sorry" is likely just so much BS. Maybe it's nothing more than remembering that you can't unsay things. 

Have a good week. Be a friend. Be nice to somebody.

Words and Adventures and 50 Years by Liz Flaherty

We talked at this week's writers' meeting about our voices and what we write about. I admitted that I write about aging...well, all the time. I feel kind of apologetic about it, but not really. My intent has always been to write about life's adventures from the cornfields and these days that inexorably flying  calendar has much to do with those adventures. 

I love words. No secret there. If I were a writer and I didn't love words, that might be a problem, but that's not an issue with me. My friend Nan Reinhardt collects words and writes them down. I, on the other hand, collect them, forget them, and discover them again another day. I would say that I do this on purpose, but that would be an outright prevarication. Well, yes, a lie, but we're talking words here.

Different words have importance at different times. One of my current favorites is slippery. And no, it's not really a favorite, but it's one that...well...slips into every day in one form or another.

Sometimes, instead of slippery, the word colors outside its lines and becomes trippery, because there you have the biggest single health fear I have. I tend to not watch where I'm going and I tend to not pick up my feet (they're heavy!) which means I fall more often than I'd like.

When this happens, I take a furtive look around to see if anyone has seen me skid across whatever treacherous surface I'm scaling. I wait until dizziness subsides and get to my feet using whatever methods necessary. And I am both grateful and...yeah, I'll admit it...scared, because I'm so worried about damaging a brain that's already being compromised by that damn calendar I mentioned. Becoming the subject matter in a family intervention is something I'd rather avoid. 

Also slippery are the memories of what happened yesterday. Yes, I know we talked about it, but then there was a squirrel or something and it's just gone. I do, however, remember the day my 47-year-old son went to kindergarten orientation. He had on this little denim jacket...

I've loved every age I've been in my adult life, some more than others, and this year when I am 70--which makes this my eighth decade, something I'm not thrilled about putting into print--is no exception to that. Because no matter how scary and frustrating the aging process is, it is also endlessly fascinating. There is no possible chance for boredom, because life changes virtually every day. Even if it really doesn't, there's the memory thing, so...yeah, every day.

As your vision dims and clouds, it also values everything it sees, because you've gained a real appreciation for the word finite. 

Listening becomes not only important but a necessity. Not only because you might miss something, which you most certainly will, but because hearing gets compromised. Even if you hear well, it is often situational. As in, your husband can't hear you if you're on the couch beside him, but will talk to you from two rooms away and be offended because you can't hear him over the sound of water filling the washer right in front of you.

I keep italicizing words because...you know...words. They have so many meanings and places at different times in our lives. There are also some, and combinations of some, that I don't like. 

Like the term "little old lady." It may be accurate, but it's not your place to call me one. 

Like "no filters." I use this one myself, and it, too, is accurate. However, quite often, what it really means is rude. It's occasionally used interchangeably with entitled. This is not who I want to be. Even as a little old lady.

Like "kids today." Kids today are great, just like they were in every decade before this one. Their parents have made mistakes, and the only reason we complain about them is that they're different mistakes than the ones we made.

Like...oh, good grief, I think maybe staying past your welcome should be included here. I've gone on a little longer than I should have. But this has been fun for me to write. That's another word about aging, by the way: fun. It really is. 

Fifty years ago today, Duane and I went to a church in Denver with our friends Mike and Nancy and Rev. George Hapner and promised each other forever. It has been a long adventure. We have learned that sometimes a long marriage is held together by scar tissue and the emotional superglue used when we've broken pieces off each other's hearts, but that together is the operative word. We're going--he says--for another 50. Okay by me. I love you more, Duane. Love, by the way, is another favorite word.

Have a great week. Make life an adventure. Be nice to somebody.