gratitude, selfcare, purpose

i just saw this on linkedin - one of those posts by some or other coach, asking you to say what the first three words you spotted are. mine were gratitude, selfcare and  purpose.  and it struck me that maybe there was more to it than just a random trick of the eye. i think those words have been the words of my summer - perhaps selfcare most of all, as i've gently tried to give myself time to think. but i've also been very grateful for the chance to try something completely new, stretching my body and yes, even my brain, in new directions, while i give myself time to once again find my purpose. i'm also grateful that i've had the time to devote to this selfcare. when i glanced at the graphic again after uploading it here, strength and breakthrough were the words that popped out. i don't know that i'm feeling particularly strong, and nor have i had any great breakthrough, but i'll be looking for those on the horizon.

which words do you see?

we can't laugh anymore

i am genuinely worried about the state of the world. not only is it filled with the spray-tanned satan's distractions (see the weekend's nfl bullshit), it's also filled with his name-calling threats at north korea, which has another madman at the helm and possesses nuclear weapons. at least the russian noose seems seems to be tightening, which is probably why he's pandering to his racist, white supremacist base so loudly on twitter. do not pay attention to the man behind the curtain...the great and powerful oz has spoken...

but i fear that all of the noise he has put in the air has rendered us all unable to talk or listen or have a dialogue and worst of all, unable to laugh or joke. about anything and everything. we have become strident and righteous and holier-than-thou where our own beliefs (opinions?) are concerned. and even amongst friends, we can no longer laugh or express an opinion that's might not be in alignment with what that friend currently believes.

not that long ago, at a party, i exploded at someone who trotted out that tired line about what a terrible candidate hillary clinton was, so i am as guilty as anyone else. and seriously, has there ever been a person more genuinely prepared to be president? (don't get me started). but genuinely, it's a trend that worries me.

here's an example:

forgetting these righteous times that we are in, i accidentally got involved in a strident exchange on a friend's facebook page about the words idiot, moron and imbecile. she posted that we shouldn't be using these words anymore, we should do better. and she feels this acutely since her beautiful daughter has the extra chromosome of down's syndrome.

in the early part of the last century and probably on through the 1950s, these words were psychological diagnoses for people of an IQ below 50 (and in some cases below 25), and people with down's syndrome fell into this category. i appreciate that. however, they are no longer used in this way in psychology and have entered mainstream speech, on par with stupid and dumb (dumb surely also had a diagnosis attached at one point).

thinking that if we don't laugh about the spray-tanned satan, we must curl up in fetal position and cry uncontrollably (an option i've also tried), i attempted to joke on my friend's post against the use of such words, asking if we couldn't still apply them to him since it was a kind of diagnosis. this is a friend who i have known for nearly a decade and who i know to have a wonderful sense of humor and who knows, in her heart of hearts, that i would never purposefully be mean to her or her child. but it seems that her humor is gone in these days of righteous indignation and so she and her possé of like-minded folks, jumped all over me for my insensitivity and accused me of insulting her child. i was sincerely not insulting her child, i was insulting trump. you see, those words are no longer used as terms of diagnosis, and haven't been during my lifetime, and they have taken on (or perhaps returned to) meanings that pretty accurately apply to the current president. 

the fact is, words often change meaning over time...

Idiot Origin: 1250–1300; Middle English < Latin idiōta< Greek idiṓtēs private person, layman, person lacking skill or expertise, equivalent to idiō-(lengthened variant of idio- idio-, perhaps by analogy with stratiōtēs professional soldier, derivative of stratiá army) + -tēs agent noun suffix

even mark twain used idiot in the sense i meant it: "Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." - [Mark Twain, c.1882] so perhaps the psychological designation assigned to the word was the aberration.

maybe we need to return to a place where we can talk to one another, joke about things that are serious, not look for offense where none is meant, and thereby cope with these times in a way that helps us all. is that too much to ask?

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these architectural depictions of mental illnesses are poetic and beautiful.

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when in macedonia...

aka, there's an app for that.

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have you listened to alone: a love story?

three words

bread. butter. radishes.

best. sandwich. ever.

i learned about this here.

i thought it sounded a bit wack.
but it won me over with the simple.

try it. now.

we served them at our salon evening this evening. it helps if the bread is homemade, freshly out of the oven, still slightly warm. chives should probably be from the garden and include a few blossoms, which are in their glory right now. but if you have other herbs, they're ok too. plenty of flaky salt is essential. and good, organic butter. the elements are simple, but you choose them wisely, they just work. 

and about those three words, we ended our salon (the theme was reflections, just like our spring exhibition) by asking everyone to describe themselves in three words. it isn't easy. you should probably just say the first three words that come to mind. and what was weird was the ones i was sitting there, thinking up, weren't the ones that came out my mouth when it was my turn. the words i actually said were: relaxed, creative and honest. the words in my head were: funny, laid-back, creative. at least creative was on both lists and arguably relaxed and laid-back mean the same thing, so maybe my lists weren't that different. i also added, when i said it out loud, that i was more of an introvert than i seemed. a good friend nodded at that.

what are your three words? are they different on a given day? or a given hour? or a given minute? who are you anyway when it comes down to it?

if i had to say them right now, they would be: nightowl, electric, awake. 

holding on

it's time for a new toothbrush. i bought this one last november when i arrived in sioux falls without my luggage. after 15 hours on various flights, i was desperate to brush my teeth and insisted that my sister stop at a drugstore so i could get a toothbrush and toothpaste before we went to the hospital to see dad, who lay dying at the hospital. and somehow, this toothbrush has gotten bound together with dad in my mind and i can't bear to replace it. it's funny how that happens, how an ordinary object takes on a magnified significance in your mind.

i read a guardian piece yesterday about the significance of words when someone dies and i've been thinking about it ever since. i realize that i felt the opposite of author gary nunn about those words of condolence that people offered. the distancing phrases like "passing away" infuriated me, causing a slow boil inside that i had to keep bottled up. and everyone's need to say something or express how sorry they were also filled me with a rage that i had to stifle. i understand fully that people feel they need to say something, but losing dad felt like something that was mine and my mother's and my sister's and that no one could possibly understand it or be as sorry about it as we were. it felt private and solitary and so profoundly singular that no one else should have the right to say anything. i wanted to scream that at them and i wanted to run away from all those empty words that weren't going to bring him back.

and i guess in a way that i did run away from it, flying to london, determined to finish a project that i'd worked on for months. i don't regret doing that because it's the one gut feeling i had in the whole experience - that dad would think it was the right thing to do. but looking back, i think i was escaping all of those well-meaning but empty words of condolence. i wasn't able, at that time, to share dad's death with others.

while i was there, we had a storytelling evening, where well over a hundred people came to have a beer and share their stories about dad. it was that evening that i realized, to an extent, that i did share his death with the whole community and when it really hit me how important he had been to so many people. but i wasn't ready to share it yet then and i'm not even sure that i am now.

just last night, i woke up from a nightmare in which that horrible picture of him with a shirt and tie that didn't match at all was blown up poster size and displayed at the funeral. my dad, who was fired from his sports reporter job for refusing to wear a tie, immortalized with an awful tie on in that awful photograph. it still haunts me, even tho' we were able to get it switched out quickly in reality. i guess i'm having a hard time getting over it, just as it's hard to get over dad's death.

i think of him a lot as we're working in the garden. and i don't go around crying, it's more of an internal conversation with him that i have as i'm weeding or picking asparagus. i know he'd love to see our asparagus, it's finally doing well and there's enough for some for our meal almost every night. he would like that we have asparagus in the garden and i'd love to be able to talk to him about how our sandy soil and the right amount of horse poo seem to be perfect for growing asparagus. i think he'd also be impressed with our rhubarb. it's pretty shockingly prolific. he'd also get a big kick out of the way that our little molly cat loves to "help" out when i'm in the garden. it makes me smile to think of that. it feels like thinking of him in the garden helps the healing.

but i'm just not ready to let go of that toothbrush. so, i'm keeping it for now.

stormy moods make for stormy weather

it's been a changeable week weather-wise. one of those weeks where i feel like i'm causing the weather with my moods...sunny, bright and glorious one moment, blustery and spitting the next, pretty much precisely how i've felt. of course there is a chance it's the other way around and the weather contributes to my mood and not vice versa.

despite the wonderful news on monday evening and the soul-nourishing event tuesday night, the rest of the week has been a series of petty irritations. an unnecessarily snotty mother at the stable. the fiasco that sabin's trip to st. petersburg is shaping up to be. political agendas. a strange woman who asked me to move my car from "her" parking spot in a public parking lot, where spots don't belong to anyone in particular. a dull, all day headache that prevented meaningful work or thought.

small irritations, but irritating nonetheless, especially when all lumped together. especially because they chip away at the good energy that came with events of the early part of the week. each taking a little bit of it away, until it feels like there's not enough left and you need to find a way to tank up again, but you can't because of that infernal dull headache.

maybe it's all just PMS, or rather DMS, since i think it's actually worst during, not before. but i realize that's too much information. i only talk about it because it really is a factor. moods are not something static or even or stable. they go up and down and you're in high spirits one minute and down in the dumps the next. just like our changeable weather - sunny one minute and raining the next. the good bit is that's the only way to get rainbows.

but a walk in the garden, photographing the autumn fruits on a beautiful morning before the rain comes, really does help. especially if accompanied by gathering a big batch of fruit, throwing it in the steamer to make juice and having the smells of warm raspberries and warm elderberries fill the house. it may not make the headache go away, but it helps.

happy weekend, one and all.

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pet words.  

my conscious ones (at the moment) are: topography, synesthetic, troglodyte, xenophobic.

i wish they were: transcendent, elated, vast, encompassing.

in reality they are: actually, supposedly, apparently.

what are yours?

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and speaking of words:
creative swear words.
made up words.

words are revealing

danish words for things

these amanitas are a favorite of the danes - they feature heavily in danish christmas decor - on packages, in flower arrangements, on christmas paper, on christmas trees in lovely hand-blown glass versions. leave it to the danes to love a poisonous mushroom. oddly, this predilection got me thinking about danish ways of expressing certain concepts.

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the danish word for superstition is overtro literally "overbelief."  i was once part of a cross-cultural training that got me thinking (here she goes again) about the the way in which culture pervades language. one of the participants asked about chinese superstitions and emphasized the word with a bit of an eye roll, indicating disdain. i haven't run across many superstitions in denmark - in all, it's a pragmatic people with a pragmatic language.

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danish has a marvelous way of expressing whether people have extra energy or not - overskudsmennesker and underskudsmennesker - "surplus people" or "deficit people" if i translate literally. we all know people that fit both descriptions, so it's very apt to have a word to describe it. my partner and i did a book translation and we found english very poor indeed to describe this phenomenon.

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the danish word for immigrant - indvandrer - has become a bit of a swear word in the decade plus i've been here (all over europe and the world nationalistic, quasi-tribal attitudes have arisen and denmark is no exception with the popularity of a right wing "keep denmark for the danes" sort of party). but i actually rather like the word in and of itself. if i literally translate it, "one who wanders in." now that's a concept to which i can relate. if you are an indvandrer, you are also, by definition an udlænding - "one who is from the land out there." i think the way these words are constructed says a lot about the danish attitude towards foreigners. and when it comes down to it, the danes would actually prefer that you wander on back to the land out there. lucky for me, i don't scare easily.

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i'm sure english has weird words for stuff, but none come to mind as i write this. i think it's first outside your own language that you really begin to notice things.

on the guardian and immigrants and words and passive aggressive status updates

whenever i don't blog for a few days, i end up feeling intensely bottled up with all kinds of small, unrelated thoughts. luckily, the genre of blog lends itself well to that.  it's dreary and a bit cold out this morning, so i feel justified in staying tucked up in bed with the laptop and a big mug of tea (which husband just delivered to me), and getting all those niggling little thoughts out onto the page.

i read an article in the guardian about the food revolution and all those celebrity chefs like jamie oliver and nigella lawson, who claim to be down-to-earth, but actually have full-time gardeners and housekeepers that enable them to live their "normal" lives. class warfare (bitterness?) is rife in the article and i'm on the whole unconvinced by the arguments, tho' glaser makes some interesting points. i turn to nigella and jamie's cookbooks time and again and don't find them the least inaccessible to either my daily cooking needs nor the everyday shelves of my grocery stores. it strikes me as a classic case of trying to make a mountain of a molehill. and at the end, it's apparent she's trying to sell her own book, which is precisely what she denigrates jamie and nigella for doing. hmm....

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i got a large photography book from the library yesterday. i wasn't looking for it and just happened past it on a shelf. a photographer named henrik saxgren went around scandinavia photographing immigrants. the book, published in 2006, is called krig og kærlighed - om indvandringen i norden (war and love - on immigration in the north). immigrants were photographed in their homes in norway, denmark, finland, iceland and sweden. he also photographed the camps where asylum-seekers are housed in each country. those make for some very stark photos. and the stories are even starker. i'm not finished with the book (page 104 of 266) and already i feel haunted by many of the stories. long hours in fish processing plants in harsh conditions seems to be a regular theme. not all of the stories are of immigrants fleeing war and strife in their own countries, but there are also tales of love. another recurring theme is men who were lured to scandinavia by tall, beautiful, blonde girls, only to be left stranded by them when the dream bubble burst. unable to go once the fires of love go out because they don't want to leave their children behind, they're left without network or love. i remarked to husband that the same could happen to me, but he just brought me a second cup of tea, so it looks like i'm good for the moment.

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last evening, i got bored on pinterest.

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i was reading blogs yesterday afternoon and i am struck by how often people misuse their/they're/there, it's/its, lay/lie, your/you're. and how often those same people are also homeschooling their children.

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and speaking of words, sewist/sewer/seamstress is causing a big stir and even a follow-up over at the craftsy blog. personally, i hate the word sewist - it sounds made-up and pretentious. seamstress has the weight of tradition behind it and carries a continuity with a historical line of amazing women who sew. and sewer, well, i think that rules itself out in how easily it can be misunderstood as pipes carrying poo.

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in other word-related thoughts, extranjera and i had a little discussion on facebook on friday after i used the danish word mindrebegavede. it is basically the word for retarded, but to my ear, expresses it more delicately - lesser gifted (if i translate literally). i had just heard a tween use the very local colloquial "ik' aw" about 25 times in the course of a 2-minute story. this is the equivalent of ending every phrase with "like, ya know?" and does, in fact, make the speaker sound, well, lesser gifted. so instead of screaming, i put up a little passive aggressive status update on facebook. because if facebook is for nothing else, it is THE place to get all of your passive aggressions out of your system.

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and on that note, i think i'll wander off and find something productive to do. like change around the dining room.  happy sunday, one and all.