Week in Seven Words #571

This covers the week of 12/27/20 - 1/2/21.

advisory

As New Year's Day approaches, Duolingo is telling me something: "Fais plus de sport!"

aurora

I look over her shoulder at the computer game she's playing, Heroine's Quest, and I'm enchanted by its artistry. In one scene, the player character goes ice fishing at night against a backdrop of Northern Lights.

fairyland

In the field, a hollow has filled with rain, and it looks magical in the gray light.

glazed

The stalls at the holiday market look like bright glass cubes. Most of them sell warm food, like apple cider donuts, or they display art, jewelry, and pretty knickknacks.

propping

Some of the paintings crackle with life. Others are weak, supported mostly by the jargon in their captions.

quarantine

Thankfully, they're feeling better, but they're still quarantined, their viruses mingling pleasantly.

strains

Musicians try to pump some cheer into lackluster people. Not enough people for a crowd, and still too many businesses closed.

Week in Seven Words #569

This covers the week of 12/13/20 - 12/19/20.

linguistic

An app with a green owl mascot is helping me work on Hebrew writing and French reading comprehension skills.

nurturing

She's painted the walls of her bedroom a dusky pink and hung up drawings of plants, from lianas to roses. The room feels more vital and cozy, as if everything in it is cupped in warm hands.

rebuild

Of the dumb, shattering decisions people make, from which will they recover and to what extent?

silvered

A silver sheen on the lake and leafless trees.

snowing

The park is powdered, the paths slick.

viruses

I'm glad to hear she's feeling better. One virus dominates the headlines these days, but there are still others, like colds, flus, and stomach bugs – miserable, and sometimes very serious. 

warmer

The heat from the candles washes over my hands, and I feel cozier and more content.

Week in Seven Words #562

This covers the week of 10/25/20 - 10/31/20.

deadlines

The assignment drags into the night. At one point I picture myself shutting the laptop, sliding into bed, and forgetting about deadlines. A peaceful thought, but not a realistic possibility.

initiative

On vacant private land, a homeless man is assembling a home. It won't be long before it's torn down. In the meantime, he's brought in materials from other neighborhoods and set up an unsteady shack with tarp. Several feet from it are a barrel and a bucket, some canvas bags and a shopping cart.

nemesis

During two weeks of staying shut up in her apartment, her most exciting moment, she reports, was arming herself with bug spray and a Marble notebook to hunt down a large roach.

profuse

The leaves on the thornless honey locust trees are a vivid yellow. One fountaining yellow tree after another, the pavement spattered in bright leaves.

realism

"For Halloween," he tells me over Skype, "I'm pretending to be an alcoholic." He has a mostly finished bottle of whiskey on his desk, in full view of the camera.

transporting

The idea of buying a house appeals to him much more than the reality of living in one, maintaining it, and cleaning it. So he goes on Redfin and stares longingly at a ranch house in Lancaster, PA that he'll never buy. Because the floor plan is online, he pictures what he would put in each room and wonders whether two recliner chairs would fit in the tiny screened porch.

virion

I spot a kid dressed up as COVID-19, what the virus looks like under a microscope. It's a costume both funny and depressing.

Week in Seven Words #540

This covers the week of 5/24/20 - 5/30/20.

arboreal

Trees heavy with leaves cast silky shadows.

disclosed

There's a story behind each name on the monument, and sometimes you stand next to someone who knows one or two of those names and stories.

divertissement

A man is making giant bubbles with two big sticks and a cord. The wind conditions aren't favorable, and the bubbles don't float for long. Beside him, another man is meditating in a standing pose with two dogs curled at his feet.

helplessly

A metal plank rises from the river and rests against the boardwalk. A mother duck and her ducklings are scrambling up it, headed for land. Only one duckling remains in the water, swimming back and forth beneath the slope of the plank. It hears its family above, but doesn't know how to get to them.

reminded

We meet up for the first time in months and sit several feet apart on benches in the park. After the expected conversation about the pandemic, we try to switch to another topic. At that moment, a golf cart covered with roses passes us, a speaker mounted on its roof playing a looped message about how important it is to wash your hands. 

scrapes

The Scrabble board has seen rough use. Many of its colors are rubbed out, and some of the letter tiles have almost turned into blanks. And you can't have more than two blanks.

unthinkingly

It's perverse the way people cheer on or excuse the looting from the safety of their comfortable homes. Their own livelihood and years of labor aren't threatened. To them, the looting is a spectacle, a show they're enjoying before they get bored and switch channels.

Week in Seven Words #530

This covers the week of 3/15/20 - 3/21/20.

forage

They trawl through several stores, buying bottles of water where they can.

hurrying

Her semester cut short, she's flying home on short notice from thousands of miles away.

insecurity

His temper is fraying. He's stressed out about the tanking economy and deeply worried about his job.

mixed

We pass joggers, kids playing basketball, a temporary memorial to synagogues destroyed during the Holocaust, many trees, an obelisk, rows of stores closed.

peacefully

On a bench in the garden, a woman is reading. Three patient, relaxed dogs are nestled around her.

unstick

Ducks with white and black backs peel away from the water.

uptick

Some people are going about with masks. More than during the previous week. They give the streets an eerie feeling, normal daily activities mixed with strangeness and unease.

Week in Seven Words #529

This covers the week of 3/8/20 - 3/14/20.

cancellations

In one day, most of my calendar evaporates. One cancellation after another. Businesses close. Classes are cut short.

elsewhere

I ask her why she's looking through Zillow. "Escapism," she says.

reportedly

Mixed messages from politicians, pundits, health experts. I wonder if I'm underestimating the seriousness of this virus. Or maybe it hasn't fully sunk in that we're in deeply unusual circumstances and nobody knows how any of this will turn out.

restlessly

Distracted during synagogue services, my eyes and mind roaming the room. 

speculations

We're in a building that tomorrow we won't be able to enter. We talk about the virus and how people think it spreads. We have little idea of what we're talking about. Sharing things we've heard on the news produces a mixed effect: heightened anxiety combined with the relief of unburdening some of our anxieties.

stockpile

The supermarket is clotted with thick lines. People are stocking up.

strangeness

By this point, I'm used to working from home. But it's not the same now. There's an intensified uncertainty and a constriction. The city where I live has become much less familiar.

Week in Seven Words #528

This covers the week of 3/1/20 - 3/7/20.

coughing

I'm starting to look at snifflers and coughers suspiciously. Like the young guy sitting at the other end of the room who keeps coughing wretchedly into his hand. To the person he's sharing a table with, he says he's fine. But he does admit later on, with a sigh, that he's tired.

dated

We use the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine to look at Apple's website from the 1990s. It had a blocky table-based layout. It looked so amazingly clunky and amateurish (by today's standards). 

horror

The students say they don't want to learn more about the Holocaust, because it's too horrible. At least they see the horror in what happened.

overlooked

"Does he ignore me because I'm not as smart as my brother? Is that why he barely talks to me?"

reminder
The dog flops onto my lap, face-up, to remind me that she hasn't gotten tired of belly rubs yet.

unpleasant

I cringe at the dynamics in that home, the disrespect that flows casually to the mom, the vulgar comments about women and girls.

viral

Two things people are talking about all the time: the virus and the presidential election. The presidential election and the virus.

Week in Seven Words #525

This covers the week of 2/9/20 - 2/15/20.

fever

His face is beaded with sweat. On his nightstand, a thermos is perched on a short stack of books, and beside it a bottle of over-the-counter fever reducer.

frigidly

Our fingers are numb and chilly from handling wet bags of celery in a stiff wind.

gritting

Wounded, she staggers back to her feet, her jaw set.

outlet

Their backyard is a narrow rectangle, just big enough for the kids to take their noise outside for a while.

pausing

Some of my most peaceful moments that day are on an elevated subway platform, waiting for the train. It's a lull in my schedule. The day is cold, but the sun is steady, and I can stamp some warmth into my feet.

retrieved

A bit of biology knowledge – on meiosis – floats up to consciousness at a critical moment. Sometimes you don't know when you'll need to know something.

scavenging

The leftover fruit, soft with rot, is tempting. They shuffle closer to snatch up the firmer specimens, while ignoring every barked order to leave.

Week in Seven Words #521

This covers the week of 1/12/20 - 1/18/20.

cheerless
Gray streets dusted with litter. A chain store here and there, lots of chain link fencing, and some windowless concrete walls.

convolution

I almost flub one part of the coding test by overthinking things, making the questions more complicated than they are. Instead of looking at the simplest explanation for what they mean, I interpret them as a set of trick questions. 

drowsy
A sleepy walk, early when it's still dark. It seems like the only other people outside are the ones walking their dogs before work.

interconnected

Reading a memoir, I notice that the author speaks of going it alone but at the same time keeps mentioning people – family, friends, mentors, colleagues – who helped out along the way. There was no "going it alone." Sure, there was hard work, individual effort. But the support, encouragement, and connections were ever present.

provisions
The basement food pantry has shelves of beans, canned meat, packets of tuna and pink salmon, canned vegetables and fruits, and plastic bags bulging with bread. Some of the bags are collecting moisture. Some of the bread is stale. A delivery of food arrives through a chute propped up under an opening high in the wall. Boxes of food tumble down the chute and skid across a long table.

tidewater
Waves of sadness come over me, pouring over and through me.

upchuck
A pleasant dinner followed by the unpleasantness of a stomach bug.

Week in Seven Words #517

This covers the week of 12/15/19 - 12/21/19.

appendicitis
He's vibrating with tension as he waits to hear the news: Appendicitis or not? Surgery scheduled when?

fabrications
Her middle school experiences include kids making up lies about other kids to broadcast on group texts and social media. Fights manufactured from false accusations are a regular form of entertainment for many. No one is completely safe from being targeted.

glacial
They descend an icy stairwell with balloons in cold blue bunches trailing them.

image
Throughout the group conversation, he hints that his sex life is active, that he's successful, and that he's unbothered by anything. He isn't weak. Never weak. Beneath his performance runs an undercurrent of anger and bitterness.

improvisation
I try an indie RPG (role-playing game) for the first time. It's a game where you and the other players make up a storyline on the fly, based on improvisation and with structure provided by a set of rules. This game is set in a film noir universe. Without fully knowing what I'm doing, I make up a detective character and spend much of the time interrogating other characters and staging a clumsy break-in that gets me arrested. I like the collaborative aspect of the world-building and story-telling.

inconvenienced
I know what they'll say: They're busy. It's an excuse I won't argue with, because I'm uncomfortable about making myself an inconvenience. I just wish I wasn't in the category of potential inconvenience.

syntax
Arguing with someone about English grammar is not how I want to spend the next 20 minutes, but here we are.

Week in Seven Words #514

This covers the week of 11/24/19 - 11/30/19.

cafeteria
Gossip, bickering, utensils rustling, the scrape of chairs, the shuffle of sore feet.

cathode
He's happy that I've finally agreed to let him buy me a TV to replace the outdated (but still functioning) cube I've been using so far.

choosing
I sign up for some health insurance, avoiding a pushy salesperson and opting for website enrollment. Not really happy with different aspects of the coverage, but it seems the best of a sorry bunch.

fishy
Currently, his favorite stuffed animals are fish. He lines them up on the carpet, while his older brother asks if it's normal for a kid to have so many stuffed fish. (Responding with a pun, carp-e diem, probably isn't acceptable.)

germy
Bogged down with a cold, she receives orders to quarantine herself at one end of the table.

liberate
I loosen the manacles of emotional manipulation and set out to do as I planned.

perusing
Even late in the evening, the bookstore is full of people who have wedged themselves onto windowsills and into narrow aisles to read.

Week in Seven Words #507

This covers the week of 10/6/19 - 10/12/19.

bullet
In an old spiral notebook, I start a bullet journal, and so far it's working well. The method at first seems cumbersome, but in practice it's pretty easy to use, and there's no need to make it fancy.

commercial
It's a home with an aggressive commercial quality, like the set for an ad. There's little that's personal in it.

entorhinal
Her mind is ravaged by dementia, so she doesn't realize she's at a Yom Kippur service. She thinks it's some kind of simcha, like a wedding party. "I can't dance," she keeps saying. "Oh, there's the wall," she cries, her fingers tracing the mechitza.

hunting
Searching for a hat in a department store. Racks and racks of clothes, people rifling humorlessly, each item subjected to sharp inspection.

richness
Golden chrysanthemums, a golden haze to the afternoon.

space
Praying part of the time outdoors, alone, in the cool air.

whiff
The movie theater lobby smells like a dank basement toilet. The movie itself is like an air freshener. Beyond being light and pleasant, it doesn't leave a strong impression on me. What I remember more strongly is the walk afterwards, late into the evening.

Week in Seven Words #505

This covers the week of 9/22/19 - 9/28/19.

cramps
Curled up on the couch with intense cramping, waiting for the OTC painkiller to kick in. My feet swivel in time to the pulses of pain, and I try to let the murder mystery novel I'm reading distract me.

curiosity
She shows an interest in Revolutionary-era Boston, after I show her an image of Samuel Adams beer.

drub
In the back room of the board game cafe, the wall is scuffed and dented. A small sign hangs on it, asking customers not to kick it or bang on it with their fists.

hoard
I find a notebook for her, in light blue and decorated with hot air balloons, in which she'll probably want to write the poems and song lyrics she isn't yet ready to share with anyone.

tidying
I clean my shoes and donate some boots, towels, and pillow cases. Under the couch, I find dust clumps that look like small gray wigs.

unquiet
She's trying to find a chair, or configuration of chairs, that will suit her. She slides from one to the other. She chooses a middle seat, before scrambling back to settle against the wall. I don't think she'll find anything she likes, because the discomfort is embedded in her mind. She can't uproot it by means of rearranging chairs.

unthinking
She's frustrated that they don't consider a cold to be an illness. They take no care to cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze.

Week in Seven Words #491

cozying
When she speaks in English, her tone changes. It makes me think of confidential chats over coffee. It's a voice that invites you to share secrets.

crafts
The artistic touches really do lift the mood in the room. Even if they're just some colorful panels on the napkin dispensers, or a few star-shaped sculptures made of paper dangling from the rafters.

diagnostic
The doctor seems impatient. He orders some tests, and it feels more like a stalling tactic because he's not sure what else to do, but who knows.

ease
She just taps into me, and comfortable conversation flows out.

gentle
The river is dimpled. The silver bridge glistens in the pale, pink light.

pain
Being in pain feels lonely.

pressure
Sometimes people ask you, "Are you well, are you well, are you feeling better?" in a way that stresses you out, because you want to just reassure them. They need to be taken care of, their agitation soothed, regardless of how you're feeling.

Week in Seven Words #490

blaring
The cafe is cozy, dimly lit, with a decor of dark wood and cream. What kills the atmosphere is a large, loud TV mounted on the wall, the people on it yammering away.

blunting
The splinter doesn't hurt so much, because it has lodged in a callus.

directs
The wind stirs the pages of her speech, as if reminding her to look away from the words and at the audience.

encouraging
Hearing good feedback on a draft of my novel sweetens a week of painful, worrisome symptoms.

hydration
A teenager takes a swig from a large bottle. "Water is the best f*cking drink," she says. "It's my best friend."

panels
One man gives a lecture on confronting viewpoints radically different than your own. Another holds a discussion group that reminds me of sitting around in a dorm room at 1 a.m. pondering the meaning of life.

topics
We haven't seen each other in a while, so over pizza we have a short, intense conversation that we try to pack with all kinds of important things – family, politics, cultural differences, the tendency of pigeons to crap on roofs and balconies.

Two Very Different Movies Full of Poignant, Painful Hope

Title: Awakenings (1990)
Director: Penny Marshall
Language: English
Rating: PG-13

Based on a memoir by Oliver Sacks (which is on my to-read list), Awakenings tells the story of a treatment administered in the late 1960s to a group of patients who had been stricken decades earlier by encephalitis lethargica. The disease left them in a catatonic state. They stopped moving and talking. They seemed to stare into space all day. They were written off by hospital staff as incurable.

And perhaps there is no permanent cure, but when Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) gets appointed to the psychiatric ward where these patients have been shelved, he notices that they exhibit some responses. For example, catching a pair of glasses that have almost fallen to the floor. They may not be 'dead inside,' which is the received wisdom. It's horrifying to consider that they live with awareness while trapped in their unresponsive bodies.

Sayer experiments with administering L-dopa to these patients. (L-dopa started being used as a treatment for Parkinson's disease, and a possible similarity between Parkinson's and what these patients were suffering was the impetus for trying the treatment.) To people's astonishment, L-dopa has a positive effect, at first. The patients wake up.

A central theme explored in this movie (and captured in the title) is what it means to be awake, alive. One of the patients, Leonard Lowe (Robert De Niro), was struck down by encephalitis lethargica as a boy. His doting mother (played by Ruth Nelson) has stayed by his side throughout his catatonia. He awakens to find himself decades older. As with other patients, his reactions are a mix of wonder, joy, trepidation, sorrow, and frustration. Leonard has a deep thirst for life. There's a beautiful scene, set to "Time of the Season" sung by The Zombies, where he and Sayer leave the hospital and explore the outside world for a bit. Leonard is thrilled. Being alive and awake feels so fantastic, and at one point he says of other people:

"They've forgotten what it is to be alive! The joy of life, the gift of life, the freedom of life, the wonderment of life!"

He also becomes increasingly impatient at not being able to leave the hospital permanently to live on his own. He wants to be a man, an adult, after being long deprived of the opportunity. But he and the other patients need to remain under supervision until it's clear that the drug works. As it turns out, its effects are short-lived.

Sayer, meantime, is discovering a deeper meaning to life. He's a shy, reclusive man. Prior to working in the ward, he conducted experiments on earthworms. Humans seem to bewilder him. At first, he doesn't understand Leonard's thoughts on the joy of life, those beautiful words tossed through a window that's been briefly opened. A window that's sliding shut again in the final part of the film. Sayer's most meaningful human contact, possibly in all of his adult life, is with these people who are grasping at life before the window closes. Leonard becomes his friend, in a relationship that sometimes turns antagonistic. A nurse working on the ward, Eleanor Costello (Julie Kavner), might also become a friend or girlfriend, if given a chance. It's a chance Sayer decides to take, at the end.

This is my favorite Robin Williams role, of the movies of his that I've watched so far. Except for one moment where he comes across as Williams the Entertainer, he fully slips into Sayer's gentle, withdrawn character. De Niro also gives a whole-hearted performance, throwing himself into it physically and emotionally.

What I especially like about Awakenings is the refusal to give in to despair. I'm speaking not just of the characters but of the tone of the movie as a whole. What happened to these patients' lives is horrifying. The movie shows the consequences of missing decades and trying to discover who you now are, even as the treatment keeping you awakened may fail. But there are also scenes of dancing, including a lingering slow dance for Leonard and Paula (Penelope Ann Miller), a woman visiting her father at the hospital. There's delight in music and insight in poetry, as in the scene where a poem by Rilke, "The Panther," strikes Sayer as a window into the minds of his catatonic patients. And there's love and a need for companionship, long denied by Sayer, though by the end he realizes that he needs other people to truly live.

Week in Seven Words #413

angriness
At first, his mood expands to generosity. Then it contracts to a tight anger that makes the air difficult to breathe. The anger doesn't last long. It gradually lightens into an occasional snide remark, delivered with a smile.

flickers
The dance of candlelight in a dark room.

hygiene
Images from Blue Planet play out in front of me while the dentist scrapes away at my teeth.

infectious
He clutches a handkerchief to his mouth and looks around furtively, after coughing in a way that brings to mind the expression 'patient zero.'

jerkily
During foosball, we both adopt the 'random spasm' strategy, meaning that we don't know who will hit the ball or when or where, but sometimes a goal happens anyway.

resistance
I slip back into a bad habit, but it doesn't last as long this time. I can step out of its clutches more quickly.

toddling
He's a happy, loved little boy. Helped along in his walking, he looks around to see who's watching him carry out this amazing feat.

Week in Seven Words #397

casually
Babies can be so nonchalant. This one has a cold, and without pause, she sneezes straight into her dad's face, then continues peering around and reaching for things.

characterization
"This time, it's going to be different," he says, "I'm going to write fiction that has characters. I mean, they're going to be like people this time."

diffuse
The number of people at the table makes it so that there isn't any pressure on me to speak; at the same time, I'll have someone to talk to (and something to talk about) when I choose.

dodge
He senses the pressure placed on him to read the words, to make the effort exactly to the adult's specifications, and he ducks behind his phone.

fluttering
She holds her troll doll in the air to watch the wind comb through its hair.

recuperate
The first night is rough, because my throat is raw and painful. The next day passes on wobbly legs. Then the second night comes, and with it, thankfully, a deep, healing sleep that helps so much.

riparian
We walk on a sandy path by the river. It runs like a thread through needly pale green shrubs.

Week in Seven Words #361

absorptive
They have a quick, vicious temper. They'll unleash it without absorbing its effects; they may even forget, an hour later, just how angry they were. The absorption is left to me.

auxiliary
She's finished reading the Harry Potter series, but doesn't want to let it go. Potter Puppet Pal videos are among the media she's found to maintain her connection to the Wizarding World.

crayons
Teens with fruit punch hair bump shoulders as they drift through the park.

defense
For indoor soccer, the footrest is the goal. In the middle of the game, the dog trots over and lies down in front of it to lick the floor.

irrelevant
"He's entitled to his own opinion!" she tells me the day after. An irrelevant comment, as I never argued about anyone's right to share an opinion. As for the content of the opinion, I can't argue about that either, without being called names or told that I don't really mean what I'm saying.

melting
The gingerbread truffle bursts and melts on my tongue. I think with even more gratitude about the person who gave it to me.

runny
Throughout the store, there are sniffly kids with smeary noses and slurpy coughs.

Week in Seven Words #358

bundled
There's a bundle of blankets on the couch. It takes me a few moments to realize it's a child, staring at the TV through the fog of a cold.

fidget
I need to guard against the antsy expectation of the next thing, the unsettling need to keep scrolling down the page or refreshing it.

genre
They're reading young adult novels set in dystopian societies, and I like their analyses of these books - what makes sense to them, what doesn't, and their take on the characterizations. Their thoughts on what they read have become more complex.

gravel
He's bought neon orange gravel for the fish bowl. When he cleans it in the sink, it makes a crunchy, rustling noise in the spray of cold water.

mortify
I speak to someone who calls himself progressive. To him, being progressive means using certain tortured terminology and immediately shaming people who don't. It's likely the correct terminology will change soon, so he'll have to keep a close eye on developments. Signaling correctness is a key way to avoid ostracism.

pattern
Wine-colored leaves shaped like stars, suspended in perfect stillness under a streetlight.

sharing
The waiter brings out a slice of cake with a candle stuck to it. It's meant for an adult's birthday, but mostly the kids devour it, after it gets sectioned with a steak knife.