Wishing you a peaceful, free Memorial Day weekend.
Wishing you a peaceful, free Memorial Day weekend.
My grandfather, when in his nineties, wrote me a letter in which he listed everything he and my uncle had eaten in the past week. That was the news. I love this poem by Nancyrose Houston of Seattle for the way it plays with the character of those letters from home that many of us have received. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]
If you’re like me, you know what makes you happy. You probably sprinkle those things through your days, like chocolate chips in a cookie (speaking of things that make me happy…) to make life sweeter. But what about things that make you unhappy—your happiness busters?
Photo courtesy D. Sharon Pruitt, Pink Sherbet Photography |
Just so you know, this is not a self-portrait... |
One of my greatest simple pleasures is one I couldn’t escape even if I wanted to: words. I love words. Fat ones, skinny ones, juicy ones, sleek ones that say just what you want them to say. I love them in prose, in poetry, in crossword puzzles and song lyrics—even in dictionaries and thesauri. Though I’ve never read the dictionary, when I look something up, I find myself wandering through the opened pages looking for gems. For instance, did you know that thingummy (an alternative of the earlier thingum) is in the dictionary, and is defined as “thingamajig”?
I love words that sound like what they describe: buzz, hiss, murmur, boom, clank, sniff. I love words that conjure up images and emotions: ephemera, molten, doppelganger, begrudge, noodling.
Photo: manumohan.com “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”—Mark Twain |