Week in Seven Words #522

This covers the week of: 1/19/20 - 1/25/20.

apathetic
She barely reaches forward with her mind, because so much has stopped mattering to her.

diversions
They've taken a break from studying to play a game of Uno. Every so often one of them says, "How dare you!" in a playful way, chiding the other for a good move.

gender
He gets grief for preferring dance to basketball, and she gets grief for preferring basketball to dance.

hues
We detour through an art gallery, a warren of color.

lingers
"Can I still write to you?" he asks. And yes, I'm fine with hearing from him by email.

response
She gives me honest feedback about my book, and I'm thrilled.

thankful
He mentions a gratitude exercise, a pause to list some things you're thankful for. I start doing this at the end of each day before falling asleep. Just thinking about a few things – moments of interest, progress, contentment, or happiness – I'm glad I've experienced. 

Week in Seven Words #360

brand
He knows it's ridiculous to spend this much money on shoes. He laughs at himself, even as he buys a pair and takes photos of them - first in their box, then on the floor, and after that, with himself in them.

deadened
He's afraid to care too much about anything. His heroes have soured on him. His teachers are dead inside. His friends take pleasure destroying things.

equanimity
The room is wrecked. He stands to the side, nodding slightly to the music from his headphones, as he takes in the work ahead of him.

fabricate
They craft a lie and treat it publicly as truth. It's the only way to keep peace in their family. They tiptoe past uncomfortable topics and avert their eyes from vile behavior.

hinging
She wants to write an email that's persuasive and appeasing. So much is at stake for her, with this one email that may never be read.

splatter
Soft pink tomato guts slick between my fingers.

squeakily
The street is split open with repairs. Mice pour out, seeking other homes.

Week in Seven Words #310

carving
The wind slashes at us all the way up the hill.

enfolding
She lingers in her daydream. Its air smells like a bakery, and its streets are cobblestone. Roses burst from a breach in the wooden fence around her Queen Anne house.

patchiness
Sidewalks held together with cement, gum, and mashed litter.

restless
It's a rumbly night with noises from parts unknown.

rosiness
Receive an email from her. Attached, a selfie with our faces wreathed in hearts.

run-of-the-mill
A movie stitched together from nostalgic moments, explosions, and characters who arrive with pre-packaged, top-level abilities. Dressed conveniently in white for good, black for bad.

ungrammatically
An academic article, written as if each sentence was held to a fire and partially melted.

Week in Seven Words #283

disengage
She walks ahead of the rest of us, and I understand the mood she's in - restless, unwilling to talk, needing to feel like she's floating free.

dump
Between the chainlink fence and the water is a zone of discarded objects: a pink Disney princess balloon, a bike wheel, green bottles and a soccer ball.

lava
Volcanic colors of sunset over small gray buildings.

lurch
An email I expected arrives. Even though I sensed that something like it was coming, it's no less disappointing.

scalpels
Skyscrapers like silver blades cutting into the night.

squandering
Half an hour gets sucked away on a TV show where people make petty, poorly thought out decisions and end their night drunk and brawling.

watercraft
We walk past the yachts in the marina and marvel at their features, like the hot tubs and lounge chairs. "Which one is yours?" she asks, grinning. I tell her that mine isn't a yacht. It's a leaky rowboat. The amenities include a bucket to bail out water.

Week in Seven Words #272

fixation
"What we lack is TRUTH and COURAGE!" she cries. (Her friend's reply is a low murmur.) "No, NO!" she cuts in. "COURAGE! We have no COURAGE!" (Her friend continues murmuring.) "Nothing can get done without COURAGE!"

girding
Along with packing for the trip, I need to prepare psychologically. I know there will be tension, anger and irrational arguments. Lingering grief too.

nourished
They sit cross-legged on the picnic table beneath the maple and feed each other pizza.

one-sided
It's difficult talking to people who are always so certain. They like to give me a knowing, pitying look, like they've got it all figured out and they're just waiting for me to come around, any minute now, to their way of seeing things.

released
I attach the file, send the email, and hope for an outcome that isn't terrible.

unaccustomed
When he sits by the shelves with his son on his lap and reads from the picture book, he sounds the words carefully. He looks puzzled at the bright children bouncing through the American city from page to page.

well-reasoned
"I don't like losing," he says, as the centerpiece of his argument for why I should lose to him.

Week in Seven Words #246

brevity
Head fogged with a light fever, I open the door and hope that, for once, she'll say nothing and leave quickly.

etiolated
His parting emails, echoing an earlier confusion about what he wants and how he means to act in a relationship.

gritty
Pencil shavings in a pink pencil case.

laugh track
They watch the episode again, this time to revisit all the parts they found funny the first time around and see if I'll laugh too.

neural
The fourth and fifth fingers burn with a muffled electricity, as if they're stuffed with poorly insulated wires.

precocity
The persona she adopts to protect herself is the bright girl who doesn't have patience for adult silliness. She knows everything and let's every taunt roll off her. That's what she wants you to believe, so that you don't look more closely at her.

spacey
She writes a sentence, stops, stares at the book spines, forgets how she meant to continue. She crosses out the sentence, begins again, stops, stares at the far wall, the pencil tip wobbling on the lined paper.

Week in Seven Words #79

chord
I love hearing people talk about a piece of writing that got to them in some way, whether they like it or not; the passion in their analysis is beautiful.

eyrie
The children's section of the bookstore is full of possibility and vision. Richly illustrated picture books show moonlit skies, animals reveling in meadows, wizards roaming the woods with wands flashing. The walls sing with color. It's sequestered from the rest of the store, a world apart from the blander adult aisles, the racks of sweatshirts and wrinkled magazines.

goodwill
I like this stretch of neighborhood, especially in the morning hours. On one side of the street there are trees and a branch of the public library; on the other side there's a post office, bookstore, and a smattering of tables beneath an awning. The day isn't too hot yet, people look pleasant and determined, and there are no lines at the post office.

planner
She buys me an 18-month planner. It has a pale green cover with gold butterflies and scrolling leaves.

reroute
On the phone she blocks me out, so I resort to email. For several minutes I type, explaining what it is I feel and why it is I need to be heard, a claim to attention I rarely make; and after checking that the words aren't angry or hurtful, but just too firm to ignore, I send it off instead of saving it as a draft that will never see the light of day.

rustle
The other room hums quietly with the T.V., with her footsteps, drawers opening and sliding shut. The place doesn't feel like a vacant shell.

tar
My fingers on the keys feel coated in it.

Week in Seven Words #61

cinematic
I'm loaded down with work. In response, I start considering all the movies I'd like to watch.

disdainful
The weather is a slap to our face, spring giving us a cold shoulder.

ether
What happens to the emails I send that don't arrive? I see them dissolving at high speed, the words turning into a sparkling dust.

grungy
It's possible for the brain to feel grungy, like it's been sitting in a bucket of mop water.

imprisoned
Peeping out from the tortured syntax and the litter of logical fallacies is a glimmer of truth.

mollify
I don't know what it is about a spoonful of whole milk vanilla yogurt - a bit of peace and calm in every corner of your mouth.

protoplasm
The sentences look as if they're trying to cohere into paragraphs but can't. They're too spattered. Sort of like a jellyfish trying to walk on land, it won't happen. There's a ways to go yet, in their evolution as solid structured papers.

Week in Seven Words #59

badge
One afternoon I get an email. I read it with a slow smile that I feel in my chest. Over the next couple of days I think of that email as a badge pinned to me, that only I can see for now.

frizzy
She's a pink zig-zagging imp with a head of flaxen curls.

fuzzy
Language has logic, to an extent. To what extent, we wonder, staring at the spreadsheet in silence.

magnitude
The photos show things that have always seemed solid and sturdy, like houses, floating or flattened with everyone and everything in them.

mantilla
Rundown porches are veiled in pink blossoms.

pungent
From layers of fresh mulch and fertilizer, daffodils start to test the air in small isolated clumps.

snuffed
A candle burns next to the photos of five people who were murdered in their beds; one of them was an infant, her eyes in the photo scrunched up in sleep.

Week in Seven Words #12

blotchy
Outside the bookstore an academic journal lies half-propped against the curb, its cover grazing the tires of a parked car. The pages are swollen with rain, and certain words glisten in deep black.

buoyancy
Candles, silver, grapes, iced cakes, jellybeans, and chickpeas. We pack into the dining room and pass around drinks ("l'chaim, l'chaim"). As the newborn sleeps upstairs, his great-uncle talks to the guests about the tremendous potential we each have in life to do good.

hi
Her email is a golden droplet. "Hi" is the only word she writes, and I understand the tentative hopeful tone (the question mark that follows); the last time I heard from her was two years ago. But for the moment nothing else needs to be said.

retreat
Different ways to dig in one's heels against demands, responsibilities, the press of time. One person watches clips from Beatles concerts, marvels at the music and how wild the crowds were. Another oversleeps, and at dinner takes pleasure slowly eating slices of beet from a plastic cup. A third slips into computer games as a warrior with esoteric skills.

treat
On top of the pink-frosted cupcake sits a strawberry that was dipped in dark chocolate. As I peel the strawberry off, some frosting clings to it in small pink splodges. My first bite is a burst of fruit, bittersweet chocolate, and hyper-sugary pink.

unease
Dark stairwells lead down to doors we can't see. Windows are boarded, black plastic bags slither along the sidewalk, and at the street corner in a warehouse some bright lights flicker and machines hum. Of the houses, one front stoop seems welcoming, with fairy lights, wind chimes, and a fold-out chair (we wonder who lives in that house, and if they ever sit out on the stoop this late, when the street is eerie and nearly deserted).

welcome
We're jigsaw puzzle pieces, curiously shaped, and we prefer not to lock ourselves rigidly in place; once a jigsaw puzzle is put together there's no room for any new pieces. What we like is to laugh and talk and scuffle in the box, and welcome anyone who wants to hop in.