
Wild Words
Very often when I’m reading or writing I get distracted by a word. It might be a word I don’t know, or one I thought I knew but clearly didn’t, and sometimes it’s a word that just feel good to say.
I like the word embouchure very much, but it’s incredibly hard to work into everyday conversation. Unless I take up a wind instrument. I’d like to be able to write the perfect sentence about how, for me as a writer, the curve of my hand around a pen is an embouchure, but the musically inclined artists would scoff. Plus, I use a computer, so I can’t pirate the word for myself in any legitimate way.
I love words that don’t wear seatbelts, like magic, imagine, and flung.
I’m smitten with flirty words, the ones that, if said with just the right inflection, can bring about a blush. Bewitched, simmer, scandalous.
I dig words that feel like jazz and summer nights, like patois, chrysalis, and kismet.
Today my art project involved tiny dried flowers, a clay butterfly, and a cork emblazoned with the word flourish. Another fine word that feels good to say, kind of like an exhale.
One of its definitions is to be in a state of activity or production. That’s a perfect word for Day 5 of my projects. I am producing art, and writing, and doing my planks, things I didn’t endeavor to do daily before these bizarre times. I am creating. I am thinking, listening, reading, and all of it has been enhanced by this opportunity to stay put.
I frequently have no idea what day of the week it is, but I am flourishing.
![]() |