Week in Seven Words #583

This covers the week of 3/21/21 - 3/27/21.

biota

The season begins with crocuses, progresses to turtles.

fending

Spiky seed balls plinking on car windshields and roofs, as if the trees are defending against an invasion.

observing

Interesting to see who comments on the new glasses and who seems not to notice.

skateboarders

Two skateboards. On one, a young man holding a leash. On the other, a bulldog at the end of the leash. They skim along at a relaxed pace, both of them looking cool and poised.

substitutes

Her brain is largely hijacked by alternate realities, other versions of herself that command her thoughts.

superstore

The superstore is a comforting place because it never seems to run out of anything. It promises abundance.

uniformity

They all look like they go to the same hairdresser. Their hair is in the same ponytail, some threaded through a cap. They all wear yoga pants, short jackets, and big sunglasses, and they clutch a coffee in one hand, a phone in the other.

Week in Seven Words #489

capoeira
On a traffic island, as we wait for the light to change, she demonstrates capoeira moves, fight-dancing at a post.

capotain
It occurs to me an hour into my trip that the black sun hat I'm wearing is terribly unflattering. But I'm already miles from home and need that sun protection. Guess I'll have to look like a time-traveling Puritan.

guise
On our way to dinner, she reports what someone else said about me. Whether she's relating the other person's comments accurately or editing them heavily, I don't know. The only result is that I feel uneasy. Not motivated to change, just motivated to spend less time with her and with the third party she's eager to quote.

journeying
The unannounced interruption to subway service makes our trip over an hour longer. We need to get off the train at one stop, take a bus to another stop, get on another train, and finally switch to another bus. After that comes a short shuttle ride. But it makes our arrival even sweeter. We appreciate, even more, the wide-open view of the river, the soft lawns, the flowers pulsing with color among evergreens and rocks. The air is also so clean.

puffiness
The peonies are a creamy pink. They look like pastries.

siddur (סדור)
One woman talks about treasuring the repetition in prayer. Another speaks beautifully about the legacy of the Siddur. I like not just the learnedness of the discussion, but the frankness. People don't often talk about prayer in a way that's both scholarly and personal.

softness
The light falls in a pearly sheet on glass bowls with cacti, on poppies in a cream-colored vase, on a pink crocheted cap.

Week in Seven Words #478

fallen
They used to like her. Now they just humor her. It's painful to see.

kittenish
She looks like a ball of satin. Her puffy clothes have a pink sheen.

menacing
A stroller abandoned beside the statue of a warrior, its swords upraised.

merriment
We're clumped around tables on the second floor, the room warm, the liquor poured liberally, one girl dressed as a pirate blurting, "Arrgh, arrr!" to muffled laughter.

pine
Pine needles look like cascades of silver-green water.

pots
On a cramped balcony they've lined up clay pots painted light blue, lavender, and ochre. An outdoor garden where nothing grows yet. It's all prettiness and possibility.

unmarried
They announce his single status to the room. When he blushes and lowers his eyes, they laugh.

Week in Seven Words #424

clunking
The rhythm of our conversations is two people kicking a ball around aimlessly.

encompassing
Her shawl has rippling shades of blue, light and dark, as if a small ocean has settled around her shoulders.

purposeless
He stares in bemusement at his useless homework that his inebriated teacher won't bother to read.

replications
Along one avenue, each block seems to be copy and pasted, one to another. A succession of groceries, nail salons, pizzerias, and chain restaurants on repeat. (But there are some variations. A community bank, now and then. And sometimes the grocery store specializes in a certain cuisine.) Along another avenue, this one primarily residential, homes with their own small lawns give way to chains of homes with a flight of front steps and no lawn, followed by a block of project houses, then back to the homes with the front steps.

shedding
The park is all bare trees pawing at the sky, and leaves that have settled in rustling folds on the grass.

single-minded
The dog pants ferociously during the game of fetch. She darts, gasping and growling, down the hallway as if the tennis ball is an escaped criminal she alone can bring to justice.

sorcerous
Three cats emerge from a salt marsh. First a pair, then a lone one with a black mustache and thick white fur. None of them have collars.

Week in Seven Words #422

myology
A woman at the gym whistles and sings (something like, "Ooh, baby, don't leave me") as she does bicep curls. Her biceps are extremely well-defined. Maybe singing to them helps.

piercing
A teenaged girl poses for a professional photographer. A woman who's her mother, lovely too though blurrier around the edges with age, watches sharply, as if she's using her eyes to chisel her daughter.

pursuits
The toddlers stagger around blowing bubbles that they then try to catch with tiny hula hoops.

role
The latest game she's come up with is to have us pretend we're a variety of people auditioning for Hamilton. Seeing as I know few of the lyrics or melodies by heart, I'm the comic relief.

slogan
Heading down the block, I spot a man wearing a t-shirt that says "The Future Is Female," and a woman with a sweatshirt that says "Messy Hair Don't Care." Her hair is neatly pulled back.

splotch
Someone has brought a half-finished bottle of chocolate syrup to the food drive. Standing among the respectable canned foods and boxes of pasta and oatmeal, it looks sticky and disreputable.

uncomprehending
They think she's incapable of understanding people, when the real issue is that she isn't motivated to, mostly because the people around her don't invite understanding. They prod at her mind and lament that she doesn't think and feel as they do.

Week in Seven Words #389

alliance
Washington and Lafayette clasp hands, their differences in age and height smoothed over by the sculptor and by the shadows of the overhanging branches.

feelers
Throughout the conversation, she keeps pointing out how she and her husband agree on everything. "He and I never discussed this issue before, and look, we think the same!" She infuses her voice with hope. Her husband says nothing, keeps eating.

impish
Each grotesque appears to have its own story and store of sly remarks. Each gives the impression that he's only pretending to be a sculpture; as soon as you leave, he'll scamper around on the window ledges. Some look drunk. Others are spies and thieves who will sneak inside when they're sure the building is empty.

incongruous
He's come up to hike alongside me when I notice the quote on his t-shirt: "I would prefer not to." From Bartleby the Scrivener. I ask, but with a smile he prefers not to tell me why he chose this shirt on a day of vigorous movement.

patter
As I talk, I watch my words slide off them. I'm a gentle rain shower passing through their evening.

profusion
By the side of the church, the pink and white flowers look like the lining for a baby's crib. Before a brownstone, buttery flowers melt open in the sun. Others spring, pink and broad, from a ceramic planter. Leaves cascade from an open window - a houseplant bent on escape.

resort
By day, the bird bath is for the birds, usually no more than two at a time, each shivering and luxuriating in the water. At night when the birds are gone, a cockroach perches on the edge of the bowl, its antennae fanning.

Week in Seven Words #353

anterior
She wears a shapeless black dress. A shawl patterned with pomegranates covers her head and trails down her sides. She is standing still. For a few moments, I can't tell where she's facing.

anticipating
Books they can't yet read are open on their laps, as they imitate the adults around them.

breaths
I reach a tipping point where the room gets too crowded. People are starting to edge into the aisle and block the exit. I slip by them and out to the sunlight and cool air.

connecting
A phone call that fills an hour and more, and makes me feel like I'm soaring.

pennies
Leaves suspended in late afternoon light, against windows that have a copper shine.

recrimination
Where does your responsibility end and another person's responsibility begin? What are the best ways to map these boundaries fraught with guilt and anger?

red
The red chrysanthemums are the essence of red. They're strawberries and blood and fire engines.

Week in Seven Words #352

attend
For the first time in a while, I give her a kiss on the cheek. I try to pay more attention to her anecdotes.

charitable
Bags of clothing mushroom out of the donation bin.

glisten
Sunset spattering peach and gold on the river.

improvise
She builds a zip line for her dolls, just because. This is one of the pleasures of childhood, the project launched on a whim after you've finished your homework.

outmaneuver
He's almost one. He's got a healthy baby face. As such, he needs to keep ducking away from people who screech Those cheeks! and dive in with their pincers.

source
She dozes off at the table and starts humming "Frosty the Snowman." When she wakes up, she asks where the music came from. A radio? No, it's not the right season for carols. Was it us, singing?

sunk
In a voice that bears a full freight of disappointment, he lists what he thinks is wrong with the world. The words are like stones thrown into my stomach.

Week in Seven Words #298

convulsed
A piece of driftwood rocks in the middle of the bay, when a sea gull launches off of it.

enigmatic
The warped stone sculpture could be many things. I see it as a woman wearing a cowl.

nosh
He returns to the table with beer, pretzels, and hummus.

sheathe
Pettiness encased in righteous sentiment.

splashiness
One man has shimmering birds on his shirt. Another wears a sunset on his shorts. A woman puts on a swim dress in pastel American flag colors. Underneath it, her bathing suit is a riot of neon green and orange, colors straight out of the opening credits to a Nickelodeon show.

terms
She's stuck on an algebra problem. "We're going to help you," they tell her. They look over her shoulder. "Why don't you just take out the variables?" "I can't do that," she says. They shake their heads. "You're making things too complicated. Just remove the variables, and you're good." She tries to explain the problem to them, but they cut her off. "Why are you being so difficult?" they say. "We want to help you."

tissue
Some of his tattoos seem to spring from his muscles like strips of animated film. His other tattoos are more static and turn his chest and back into a billboard ad.

Week in Seven Words #243

collected
I love her look - black jeans, black blouse and vest, a fedora on springy curls of hair. An attitude of cool self-possession.

enticingly
A bright warren of books and tables for two.

seitan
Sometimes it's meat-like and meat-flavored. Other times it's like a rubber ball sliced up and well-seasoned.

spongy
What's left of the plant is brown, sponge-like matter crumbling on a sunny window.

streamers
The paintbrush releases ribbons of color into the water.

trending
She has the look of someone who works in a social media company. Sleek and tan, her nimble fingers dancing across a tablet. Like a creature sprung fully grown from an iPhone.

viscid
Green pulpy whirly gunk in a blender.

Week in Seven Words #241

fissure
The photo of a canyon, blown up and stretched wide, looks like a marvelous chasm in her wall.

hacked
When people substitute an ideology for self-knowledge, they talk and act as if parts of them have been carved out.

hued
Dresses draped all over the closet like colorful skins she has shed.

inhibitions
Does writing in a journal help? I think it can, as long as you're honest with yourself. I know that over the years, growing up and even a little into adulthood, I forced cheer and optimism into some of what I wrote - writing things as I wished they were or as I thought people would want them to be were they ever to discover the journal. Sometimes I just wrote, uninhibited, but it didn't come easily. It's important to write freely, especially when writing to myself. Though looking back at past entries I've also learned some key things about my younger self from what I omitted or how I spun a certain event.

prioritize
As his grandmother raises questions about the bill, he leans towards the waiter and whispers, "Can I have chocolate milk?"

renovating
Their house is littered with power tools, the cabinets gaping and furniture stacked in the front room. They look forward to the day when order will emerge from the obstacle course.

sinking
His speech is a series of smooth white pebbles that sink slowly to the bottom of a pond.

Week in Seven Words #236

dupe
Her way of preserving peace between us is to think that I'm incapable of coming up with my own ideas. My head is a bucket, basically, and other people come along and drop ideas into it. This means that when I disagree with her, it's not really out of my own willfulness; I just didn't protect the inside of my bucket-head well enough. (The alternative is to think of me as a calculating opponent, purposefully against her.)

fibrosis
There are relationships held together by scar tissue and not much else.

indignant
A car protesting at getting towed - its alarm going off in the early morning.

lures
She tosses food to the birds, but not to feed them - only to get them closer to her when she begins her chase.

scattering
Her brain trips her up. She makes rapid deductions, but can't focus well. She chases down each stray piece of information no matter how irrelevant it is.

scholastic
It's a theater of the academic: pants rolled at the ankles, square-framed glasses, bike and backpack, a spotty beard.

staged
The barrel outside the store has filled with rain, and now the lamplight dances in it.

Week in Seven Words #173

daughter
She understands him and is fond of his curmudgeonly ways.

kinfolk
We don't look alike, but people can tell we're related. It's the posture maybe, the way we hold ourselves. Or some facial expression. I don't know what it is, but I smile when people make this observation.

maturing
She's nervous, but poised. Proud of this moment, but also good-naturedly self-deprecating.

meltingly
It's been a while since I acted on my love of cheesecake. So I try three different kinds this time. Not large portions, but smallish melting pieces to be savored.

neat
A display of cupcakes that looks like a flowering shrub.

scampering
I can't remember all their names. They all kind of look the same too, boys and girls, making noise and running around.

vogue
That dress in the back of the closet; I feel more light-hearted, putting it on.

Week in Seven Words #130

compensatory
In the absence of music, I hum more.

cyborg
He's a lean, mean furniture-moving machine, hefting tables, chairs and a futon without pausing for breath. Sort of like the Terminator, but instead of hailing from a post-apocalyptic future he works for a group that accepts donated furniture. He has no visible emotional expression but cheers us up considerably.

inspiration
The day is long and hot, and the moving van is filling up with bags, boxes and bins. The experience is worthy of a song parody, and he gets started on one during his nth elevator trip.

jetsam
The accumulated clutter was symbolic of baggage I needed (and still need) to get rid of.

shambles
It's happened again. Their relationship has gone down in flames.

shredding
I feel like an industrious rodent, hunched over tearing paper apart with my busy paws.

slotted
The shirts are all on the shelves in rippling textures and rainbow colors.

Week in Seven Words #35

administrators
The administrators who help me out are kindly, good-humored and tolerant of my anxious queries; I'm grateful they don't resemble stereotypical bureaucrats, the ones who idly bat you from paw to paw like bored cats.

covalence
I tense up in situations like these, stepping into a crowded space where I can't spot a familiar face and everyone seems to be clumped together already with their cups of sangria and their little plates of veggies and cookies. I guess their behavior reassures me to some extent as well, the fact that they're already in bunches and pairs, because it shows that I'm not the only one who feels awkward about being a lone floating atom. At last I find my way to one small group, which broadens slightly to admit me, and we stand in a little sangria-clutching circle, making introductions, searching for things we can all talk about and briefly bond over.

dance
Some of the dancing is dignified, as when we make slow turns, our palms pressed together and our skirts flaring out and then subsiding against our legs. Other times it's happily undignified, like when I'm turning in circles with a young child who is convinced that he can dance without his feet touching the ground at all.

forecasting
Leaves, gold brown and orange, whip around and batter the window like snowflakes.

goodies
She brings me a lovely new skirt the color of honeycombs and evergreens, and along with it a package of snickerdoodle animal crackers.

matches
They're strewn among the tea lights - charred and scarred canoes floundering in a calm flickering sea.

wadded
When I have a cold, the world feels like it's coming to me through a layer of cotton balls. My mouth is limp with cherry-flavored cough drop numbness.

Week in Seven Words #3

carnelian
The color of the gloves a kind friend loaned me, because I had the longer walk home one freezing night.

converge
Early in the night my thoughts are scattered, and a few hours drift past with little work done. Only when it's the early morning hours do my thoughts hurry back from the corners of my mind and converge on the topic at hand. Though my head's swimmy with lack of sleep the next morning, I'm content.

gilt
In the late afternoon, a snowy gray tree catches the sun in its uppermost branches.

nimble
A mouse darts along the side of a short brick office building. Its downy gray body is pale, even against the snow, and it seems to be moving in a series of small, quick leaps. One of my thoughts, when it finally disappears into a chink in the outer wall, is that it'll probably pop up in someone's office to loud exclamations and possibly screams. Another thought is of how vulnerable it was out in the open, even though the only creatures who seemed to have been tracking its progress were a few amused pedestrians.

roseate
Dawn light and pink bath curtains conspire to turn my skin rosy as I slowly wake up in the shower.

snuggery
I don't usually think of a certain room as cozy, but on this day the heating stays on, the lights are dimmed, and though a scholarly presentation is unfolding, the people in the small friendly audience are eating their way through a stack of chocolate chip pancakes and occasionally batting around some balloons brought in for two people celebrating birthdays.

winging
The delightful prospect of a book of poems traveling my way by mail.

Week in Seven Words #1

I think I'm going to start a regular feature on this blog. Find seven words associated with seven impressions, memories, and distinctive moments of the past week.

I'm inspired to do this largely by a couple of blogs I've recently discovered - Three Beautiful Things and Now's The Time.

So without further ado, here's the past week in seven words:

arrested
The snowman looks like it's wearing a hoop skirt, and two sodden twig arms stick out of its sides. From the window at dusk, it resembles a girl, frozen mid-spin. Snowflakes dance around her.

disenchanted
"This is not what I thought snow would be like," complains the young man from California.

frolic
On the faded pink rug at the foot of my bed, socks are frolicking. Every night after I climb into bed I toe off whatever socks I'm wearing, and they wind up on the floor in a colorful squiggling pile. It almost seems a shame to gather them up for the laundry. In deep purples, striped reds and whites, oranges and greens, a couple of respectable cream colors, they seem to be having a merry time on the floor.

lists
There are many, floating around at mealtimes. A list of movies she has to see. A list of musical compositions he wants to learn by heart. A list of "must-have" attributes in a boyfriend; a similarly detailed list for the qualities a future girlfriend must possess, to be worthy of long-term consideration. When people settle long-term, I'm told, they're looking for the best "package". The best "deal". This is how the world works, they tell me... and for a little while afterwards I need to be alone.

perplexity
In math class I'm informed that perplexity is a people-friendly version of entropy. I remain perplexed.

salon
We're all perched around a long table. Plates of miniature ice cream bars, pastries, shortbread, and pineapple wedges get passed around. We argue about and discuss politics, archaeology, history - claims of ownership of artifacts, modern day conflicts, the links between past, present and future.

squeak
My boots on loose snow make tiny little squeaks. I don't think I'd have noticed unless I was walking for a long while on snow and walking alone.