Wordless

     I am hardwired for words; they are integral to my hardware, an inextricable part of my DNA. Finding the exact word to express what I am thinking or feeling is not a preference or performance--it is a need; maybe not as great a need as food, or water, or shelter, but somewhere in the proximity.

     Sometimes this natural bent toward exact expression can manifest itself in unacceptable ways. I try not to correct people in conversation when they use the wrong word, or even an imprecise one; it tends to inhibit the free exchange of thought, let alone cordiality. No one appreciates a know-it-all. I am less adept, however, at keeping the words stuffed inside my head while rummaging around for the ones I want. They spill out, helter-skelter, and scatter into the winds. It smacks of waste, but I label it verbal processing and feel justified. I have a patient husband.

     Words are my passion. I can sit for hours and hours happily shaking them out of the trees, spend hours and hours more sweeping them into tidy heaps, and still feel content that the day has been well lived when more than half of them blow away. And when I step outside my door for a walk in the sun and encounter an adventure; an intriguing character; a brush with life, death or the lovely, raw verges of nature; I am compelled to anchor myself to those moments with words before they fleet.

     It’s like breathing.

     But some moments elude my grasp; some events produce a phenomenon in me that is deeply unnatural. So it is that the inexpressible kindness and compassion my husband and children have continued to show me as I grieve the recent loss of my parents have rendered me:

     wordless.

Su Blackwell book sculpture