Unutterable Words
When we found a discarded withered fig tree in the basement corner of our new house, my husband saw it as a challenge – besides he loved fig trees. So, we set the scrawny thing in the corner by our dining room window, and my husband brought it back to life – before our very eyes. He was so proud of it.
Then one evening we had guests – who had this little boy who was mischievous and slightly devious. When no one was watching, he snuck into the dining room and started to strip the little tree of its life, – littering our rug with leaves.
When we came into the room, we saw it all at the same time. My husband in a trance went to the tree, fell to his knees, scooped up the leaves in his hands in a posture of prayer.
“This can’t be good,” the young father said as he picked up his son and hurried his family out of the door.
I marveled at him.
In one tiny phrase he had acknowledged my husband’s pain in adult positive language that did not alarm his son. The son would have seen it, felt it – and that was enough. He would not have an outburst of foul language or harsh words for him to ponder years later. Stripping a tree of leaves is not a crime – at least most of the time.
Psychologists have found that our subconscious mind interprets what it hears very literally. The words that come out of our mouths therefore help create our reality our inhabit.
In times of crisis it is important to remember that the direction our words lead, our mind, body and environment will follow. If we use positive language about ourselves and our ability to learn new skills, achieve our goals and rise above difficulties, then that’s what tends to show up externally. On the other hand, if we are continually saying things that affirm incompetence, echo hopelessness, nurture anxiety or fuel pessimism, then that’s what will shape our reality. Over time our world will morph to mirror our words.
What we are experiencing now is a new kind of violence – our world is fragmenting. And we don’t have the vocabulary for it all.
Even our dictionaries have become outdated in a month’s time. They have actually responded with an unscheduled update for words connected with the disease and responses to it. Such as - index case, patient zero, super spreader, social distancing, self quarantine....
In a crisis, we are hungry for words. We need new words. We watch the news – and suddenly every journalist is trying to give us words. The wordsmiths rule.
Which is not an easy role, because all violence carries an inherent conflict at its roots – the words we choose will reflect this as well.
When Candace went missing the police decided that she was a runaway. We said she had been abducted. Two words that explained why she didn’t come home from school that day – but ascribed two very different courses of action.
I remember how desperate I was to find the words the world would understand. I would hurl words into the darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words in the same direction. Whether I knew it or not – I was creating my story that I would have to live with later on.
“I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.” ― Arthur Rimbaud
Then one evening we had guests – who had this little boy who was mischievous and slightly devious. When no one was watching, he snuck into the dining room and started to strip the little tree of its life, – littering our rug with leaves.
When we came into the room, we saw it all at the same time. My husband in a trance went to the tree, fell to his knees, scooped up the leaves in his hands in a posture of prayer.
“This can’t be good,” the young father said as he picked up his son and hurried his family out of the door.
I marveled at him.
In one tiny phrase he had acknowledged my husband’s pain in adult positive language that did not alarm his son. The son would have seen it, felt it – and that was enough. He would not have an outburst of foul language or harsh words for him to ponder years later. Stripping a tree of leaves is not a crime – at least most of the time.
Psychologists have found that our subconscious mind interprets what it hears very literally. The words that come out of our mouths therefore help create our reality our inhabit.
In times of crisis it is important to remember that the direction our words lead, our mind, body and environment will follow. If we use positive language about ourselves and our ability to learn new skills, achieve our goals and rise above difficulties, then that’s what tends to show up externally. On the other hand, if we are continually saying things that affirm incompetence, echo hopelessness, nurture anxiety or fuel pessimism, then that’s what will shape our reality. Over time our world will morph to mirror our words.
What we are experiencing now is a new kind of violence – our world is fragmenting. And we don’t have the vocabulary for it all.
Even our dictionaries have become outdated in a month’s time. They have actually responded with an unscheduled update for words connected with the disease and responses to it. Such as - index case, patient zero, super spreader, social distancing, self quarantine....
In a crisis, we are hungry for words. We need new words. We watch the news – and suddenly every journalist is trying to give us words. The wordsmiths rule.
Which is not an easy role, because all violence carries an inherent conflict at its roots – the words we choose will reflect this as well.
When Candace went missing the police decided that she was a runaway. We said she had been abducted. Two words that explained why she didn’t come home from school that day – but ascribed two very different courses of action.
I remember how desperate I was to find the words the world would understand. I would hurl words into the darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words in the same direction. Whether I knew it or not – I was creating my story that I would have to live with later on.
“I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.” ― Arthur Rimbaud
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