Word of the Week - 133

Illustration by Gabriel Pacheco.

Word of the Week: UNCOMMON

Let us not be content with the ordinary, the too-familiar, the comfortably common.  Let us venture a bit further afield, either in our minds or our steps, to places not-quite-known.  Let us befriend the strange.

Firstly, I believe on some level that it is ALL a mystery.  What do we really know?  How little of what does or may exist have we actually encountered and how much remains beyond the edge of our acquaintance?  Most, that is the answer.

Even within ourselves are caverns, craters of immeasurable depths.  We ourselves are as the ocean, of which less than 5% has been explored.  Think of it!  On a day when we feel at the high end of Smarty Pants-osity, we are actually rather short of the mark, not because we are lacking but because there is so much that remains, for now, unknowable or unseen, unimagined or, at the very least, rare.  Which is, you ought not to be surprised, the good news.  So much to discover.  The time of explorers is not behind us, don't let the history books fool you.  Just this month researchers learned there are four species of giraffes, not only one as had been assumed.  What other secrets are hiding in plain sight?

Mr. Kesey (of the quote above) was not one to accept much at face value, certainly not to accept it as promoted by the establishment.  I hope this doesn't tilt your planet too severely, but they don't always tell us the truth and they don't always know the answer.  In addition to existing mysteries, we have the power to fashion our own, to weave stories and paint pictures in which unknowns comfortably lurk.

All the most choice bits are not necessarily sitting under spotlights in display cases or showroom windows.  They may have burrowed in at the bottom of the Mariana Trench or could be skulking and incognito just about anywhere.  They hide within human hearts and keep life fresh with their occasional, often startling revelations.  Attend well.  Allow the world to surprise you, baffle you, and ultimately charm you.  It is waiting to do just that. 

Word of the Week - 63

Le Treport, France, its funicular and cliffs.

Word of the Week:  ESCARPMENT

First heard during childhood in the original KING KONG, the word escarpment remains one of those bits of language that the imagination grasps with both hands. In geological terms, it is  "a long, precipitous, clifflike ridge of land, rock, or the like."  Its image and my memories of the word returned this week when we discovered and watched via instant Netflix a six-part French television mystery series called, in English, WITNESSES.  The delight of the unexpected.

As with other series which share a similar darkness, namely THE KILLING, the British BROADCHURCH and WALLANDER, the geography seems to be a character in WITNESSES.  Set in Le Treport, France, on the north coast, the town is surprisingly full of quirky features which were unknown to us and likely unfamiliar to most American audiences.  The photography is much more cinematic than we are accustomed to on US television.  Dialogue is spare (subtitled), tension is built and sustained with atmosphere, place and the actors' highly expressive faces.  We would have liked more episodes but the producers wisely kept the number in single digits, before the suspense overcame us.  No spoilers here, read any reviews with caution, hope for more projects from this skilled company.

Word of the Week - 58

Art by Lynda Barry.

Word of the Week:  MULL

"How is a thought like an iceberg?"  Ponder, contemplate, consider, weigh, think.  Good thing I'm not a zealot for quantifying.  I don't want to know how much of any day I spend asking myself rhetorical questions, posing conundrums, seeking answers where perhaps none exist.  It is not time wasted, however.  If we don't wonder about things, we are marooned.  Mulling gives us bearings or at least tells us where we are not.

"My apologies to great questions for small answers."  From her poem "Under One Small Star" by Wislawa Szymborska.

Painting by Quint Buchholz.

The moon often appears, or plays a leading role, in the art of Quint Buchholz.  The moon is an attractive object for mullers.  Mystery is attractive to mullers, or more accurately, is essential.  If we knew the secrets we would have no need to ask the questions.

To mull is not to deconstruct (shudder).  If I arrive at any truths, ever, it is by widening the screen, not narrowing my focus.  It seems to be a process of allowing rather than intention, clearing space on a shelf then leaving the room to see what comes to settle in the empty spot.  Mulling, contemplation generally, is similar to my approach to writing fiction.  I stand at the curb waiting for a car to pull up, then watch to see who gets out.

Rilke told us to love and to live the questions.  Do not forget that being comfortable with not knowing isn't the same as not asking.

"More questions are on their way."

If the palm readers are of divided minds on which hand tells the story, how do we begin?




The life line in my left palm has a faint and tentative beginning.  Along its journey it becomes shallow, a washed out road, the sort for which warnings are posted about the force of running water.   As this is taking place, tracks from the north appear, run parallel and then merge to form a more emphatic crease which grows deeper as it nears my wrist.  The corresponding line on my right hand is more uniformly deep.

How is it that neither blares, at least to my untrained vision, the events that became crossroads, the fissures where life broke away from itself?  There are no islands I can find that say this is where the temblors struck, setting portions of the land adrift in a sequence of time best identified by change and loss.  Fewer than six years have produced a transformation I can only liken to entering hibernation as a bear and waking up as a collection of parts from three Volkswagens, uncertain if we have what we need to produce, with tools and skills not provided,  one semi-reliable vehicle.

We have, we are, it is all mystery, seeming as unknowable at the heart as around the perimeter.   We trail the poets and gather clues, artifacts of self that we tie up in our hems or handkerchiefs.  At night, the knots undone, we look for meaning in the potsherds.