Finding the Words

I read a lot. I write a lot. Words come at me and from me at a mile a minute. They are not worrisome. They are not scarce. In fact, they may be too numerous. Words, words, and more words.

Each means something. A word can stand alone or powerful with one or many others in a phrase. How they relate to context has much to do with meaning. And words have meaning, definitions, uses. It is odd how they vary in voice and demeanor. Nuance of meaning runs rampant most of the time. We claim to articulate but that is often a misnomer.

Nuances are squiggly and hard to pin down. They challenge us to understand the message clearly. Actual meaning varies even by the second. Articulation goes only so far.

There are times when I write something and the phrase, the use of the word even, strikes me as powerful. I do not recall using those words in that pattern before. I may have, but I just don’t remember doing so. A full stop occurs. The brain switches to mulling those words, those phrases again and again. As the importance of the phrase sinks in, I am in awe.

Did I remember these words being used in this way by someone else? Hard to remember that exactly. For some reason, though, I don’t think so. I am deeply convinced I’ve used this phrase for the first time and marvel at that. “Shades of shade” was used recently in my blog. It described deeply wooded country lanes where sunshine mottles through dense tree cover rarely, dappled, and causes different shades of light and color because of it. Thus, shades of shade. Some dark, some grey, some black green, others a deep emerald shade of shadow.

And that is what shade is, isn’t it? A shadow of light flowing past the outline of another object. Shady yes, but even different colors of shade. Thus, again, shades of shade.

I must have thought about that phrase for an hour the others day. Since then, I have thought about it many times.

Reading a book, I have come across phrases by the author that have gripped me. Stopped my brain in its tracks. Caused me to reread the phrase many times over, being struck by the uniqueness of the phrase and the special meaning it carries. Amazing what literature holds in store for us.

As much as we read and write, unique use of words creates unique meanings and flavors of meaning. Shades of shade, don’t you know!? This is the wonder and awe of words and why we engage them so much. Fun. Stimulating. Emotional. Archly keen on understanding a complex thought.

We read to know. Some of us write to know. Putting words together is creative and challenging. Thoughts are finely turned to rub against vocabulary. Nuance emerges. Finely tuned meaning escapes the tumble of words.

It is well done although an accident. Interesting, that!

August 9, 2024