Word of the Week - 136

With thanks to Plaisanter's Flickriver site.

Word of the Week:  MUCILAGE

These are days, it seems, to think about what exactly IS the glue that holds us together, either to maintain a congruity with self or a plural binding of one to another.  There is something, beyond gravity, centripetal force, magnets, chewing gum or baling wire, that stops us from dissolving into fragments.  Its forms are as numerous as are we who rely on its existence.

At its most exalted it is sticky and honey-sweet, with names like optimism, kindness, beauty and love.  It is scent, known to transport us in memory to other realms and times, or words, as used by poets to translate, impossibly, the ineffable into language.  It is color or form that jars the heart.  It is magic, mostly unintentional, the product of man or nature simply bringing forth what must be brought.

It is experiences shared, even if known in solitude.  It is recognition of me in you.  It is music, sounds raised in thanksgiving or lament.  Perhaps beyond all else it is music.

If I understand anything of the universe, it is this:  we are not meant to be divided nor to seek or invent ways that make us unalike.  We survive with each other, it is how we will thrive.  Our hands reach out to comfort.  With vocabulary we soothe and support.  In the rock-hard moments we remind one another that there are softer times.

We are the glue, aided by the wonders amid which we sometimes flounder, wonders which lift our spirits, replenish our hope.  There is no wonder too small or obscure to be considered medicinally adhesive.  It only requires - demands - the ability to illuminate what has been dimmed.  Circumstances have been known to abandon us in dark caves and haunted houses of the mind.  For me, the image of a rose, bodies of water from a puddle to a fountain, canal, river or ocean, the thought and, one hopes, the taste of dark chocolate, works of art, a hummingbird outside the window, the voice of a loved one or even sight of their name reconnect me to frightened and lost parts of myself.  They secure me to a greater circle where light prevails.

This is a gummy business and we serve as human fly paper to one another.  As we abide, fastened, we joke, we sing, we listen, we doze.  Our thoughts may wander but we, it is hoped, do not.  We are tethered for the long ride.  That is what's real.  Anything else is the illusion.

Waiting for what's next

Yesterday we had the winds.  Today we have the postcard views.  Any who watch BIG BANG THEORY or PARKS AND RECREATION know the sight of Pasadena's City Hall, shown here with palm trees.  On our street, it was turf-war time among the palms this morning, the crows playing the Sharks, the parrots as the Jets.  The crows are bigger, louder and a lot more scary.  This round went to them.

Photo by Gina McDaniel

During Sunday's game between the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat, an exterior shot of the Boston stadium showed a patch of jonquils. I have it on good authority there were snow flurries not two days earlier.  I take heart from the jonquils and how each growing thing, us included, pushes tenaciously toward the sun, toward dreams and sources of nourishment in all its forms, some of which may seem nearly unreachable.  I also took heart from the Celtics, called a team of old men (which they also call the Lakers), with too many players on the disabled list, winning handsomely.  Of course, being  an age that would allow me to be the mother - by a wide margin - of the team's oldest player, probably Kevin Garnett at 35, approximately, casts the notion of old in a different light.

Somewhere in my Monday morning internet rambles, I saw the reminder to never stop dreaming.  As my mind shrieks about a split infinitive, I ignore it and continue.  My philosophy could best be described as "We never know."  The will, the determination, not only to survive but to flourish inspires me, in flora, in fauna. We don't ever know what comes next, which may be the single best and most difficult thing about this existence.  Every moment becomes an act of faith, or perhaps you would call it optimism.  Life is a cliff-hanger, one of the old Saturday morning serials at the 10-cent Early Bird movie.  I intend to keep showing up.  I want to see what happens next.