Week in Seven Words #565

This covers the week of 11/15/20 - 11/21/20.

capturing

Leaves sink into mirror-like water.

dammed

When he serves us drinks in his home, he talks about his life in a torrent. The words have been pent up by too much time spent alone. Now, his mask muffles them as they pour out.

desperate

She's been overlooked for so long. That's the main reason she's looking for an effortless win.

low-spirited

She's been in a low mood all day. The only things that keep our conversation going are the conventional greetings and the well-wishes we've said many times. Hopefully, these good wishes have some power.

readerly

As I wait in line at the library to return a book, the lady behind me gasps and tells me she has that same book on reserve. It will be going from me to her. I don't tell her that I lost interest in it after 20 pages, because she's happy to see it, and maybe she'll like it more than I did.

repeatedly

Some find comfort in their routines. Others start to question the point of their routines.

squeaky

"What's the special ingredient?" he asks, lingering over the dish, and she's tempted to hint at the raging pest problem in the city, the rats creeping into homes in higher numbers. Might as well put them to good use, right? But she figures he won't appreciate the joke.

Week in Seven Words #550

This covers the week of 8/2/20 - 8/8/20.

anuran

I love looking at photos of her holding a frog. I wonder if, like me, she'll have a terrarium in her room at some point.

cleansing

After a storm, the paths are crunchy and slick. The air is also cleaner. It's much less humid; it doesn't cling to your nostrils or stick to your throat. On a hill, in the soft evening light, two people are perched on boulders, their eyes closed as they breathe.

drawing

I draw a wonderful fork. A well-proportioned fork that's recognizably a fork. As for faces... I can draw the same face three times, and it will look like three different people (and not as some kind of intentional artistic statement). Some face variations are interesting and have more character than others.

ducks

The pier is dotted with ducks. They quack against a backdrop of creaking boats.

momentum

What stops us from crossing the path is a thick, unrelenting stream of bicyclists. They yield to no one, and they can barely manage the intense pressure, the high volume. One of them flies out of the stream when his bike hits a fallen branch. He lands hard on the grass and stands up, shaking, half a minute later.

tepid

For the first time in months, I set foot in a library. I half expect it to be a momentous visit. Maybe trumpets will sound from the speaker system. But it's anticlimactic. I grab a couple of books that have already been checked out for me. The librarians are located behind masks and a layer of plexiglass. A security guard, looking supremely bored, sits on a stool by the door.

watery

One fountain spits and crackles. Another one drips. To the west, a stream makes thick, quiet noise. I realize I'm following it correctly when I don't emerge onto a baseball field, but instead spot a pool coated in algae.

Week in Seven Words #526

This covers the week of 2/16/20 - 2/22/20.

admirable

She's productive, patient, organized, and kindly, intelligent without being arrogant, a good teacher overall.

assenting

They keep cutting into each other's speech, and their voices are getting louder, so it seems at first like they're working themselves into a fight. But they're in agreement. They're vigorously, almost rabidly, agreeing with each other about a set of political beliefs. Around them, the other coffee shop customers keep their eyes fixed on phones and laptops.

burrowing

In a neighborhood that's otherwise cold and dingy, the library is a warm nook.

ciao

We part ways sweetly on a dark street.

conversing

We curl up side by side for a long conversation.

lackluster

A cheesy cartoon, crude jokes, and stilted conversation.

quarrel

Sobs, slammed doors, the seeming hopelessness of a fight with a good friend. Chances are that half an hour from now, they'll be on speaking terms again.

Week in Seven Words #403

artifice
The small cakes and cookies displayed in the shop window look like they were created with paint markers. They can't be real baked goods. And if they are, they can't taste as good as they look.

congenial
They're slightly loud and fuzzy with wine when we bring gifts. Their dog trots around, absorbing pats and belly rubs and cuddles.

conspicuously
A tall, beefy man in a turquoise tank top and cream-colored Bermuda shorts is walking three small, identical white dogs.

handling
When he's stressed out, his home crackles with tension. His family skirt around him, finding things to do in other rooms and saying little that isn't necessary.

jawbreakers
The room is overrun by kids who pelt each other with candy, kind of like dodgeball but without any clear sides, more like a free-for-all of sugary projectiles.

serendipitous
On a brief visit to a library before a meeting, I find what promises to be an excellent book. I didn't expect to come across it and wasn't looking for anything like it, or anything in particular. Is this something that can be experienced online, where algorithms suggest only books that are similar to what's been recently read or searched for?

streaming
The girl glides on a scooter, her golden hair floating in the light of the streetlamps.

Week in Seven Words #402

combing
During dinner on a second-story terrace, the wind sighs at us through the crown of a tree.

delicately
At first it looks like a piece of stained glass, catching at the corner of my eye. It's a monarch butterfly poised on a leaf and opening its wings.

management
She left work a few months ago to become a stay-at-home mom. Within a few days, she began reorganizing a communal playroom in her apartment building and looking for other projects to sign up for. I'm guessing she will soon return to the corporate workforce.

musically
It seems like overnight she's become a major Hamilton fan. She's memorized all the lyrics, even the complicated rap battles stuffed with historical references. Today, she greets me at the door with "Washington on Your Side."

pity
Pity is uncomfortable and distasteful, regardless of whether it's felt about one's self or other people. This thought comes to me in the middle of a conversation with someone I'd rather not be talking to. I don't want to pity this other person or have that be the motive for the conversation.

relaying
The library has multiple floors, cozy and compact. A spacious staircase links them together. Footsteps echo in it, and whispers and laughter.

sidelines
We spend an afternoon at the fringes of a park, with traffic at our backs and terraced greenery before us. There isn't much hospitality indoors. One place is cliquish and for another we lack the required ID. So we're outdoors, waiting for the afternoon to fall away into evening.

Week in Seven Words #319

applesauce
Half the content of these books is beautiful nonsense, lovingly tended to in the small, dim library.

dryadic
One ranger is a flinty middle-aged woman. The other is a younger woman with red, wind-bitten cheeks and an honest face. They takes us down paths strewn with the sweet gums' spiky seed pods.

everything
"You have a special bond with her," she says. "And she loves you so much."

infliction
American beech bark scarred with names.

nosegay
A long stretch of gray glass buildings broken up by a grocery store, flowers huddled by its door.

pronounce
It isn't a discussion he wants, but a chance to speak his opinion as if it's law.

rousing
This is love, or some of what love is - sharing the best parts of yourself with others, and hoping their own best self responds.

The Sheer Prettiness of Provincetown

I recently visited Boston for a few days and made a day trip to Provincetown with a ferry (the Boston Harbor Cruises one). I'd never been to Provincetown (or any other part of Cape Cod), and it was a treat. Even the parts of town that were most blatantly a tourist trap were still lovely.

I stuck to Commercial Street, first walking all the way west to where it begins near the spot where the Pilgrims first landed in the 1600s (it wasn't at Plymouth, but Provincetown - they moved on to Plymouth a little later). At the spot historians determined is likely the one where they made their stop, there's a plaque and a small park (Pilgrims' First Landing Park). Off the park, a small beach and a jetty made of large rocks.



I walked out onto the jetty for a while. I loved listening to the water rushing under the rocks (where I also found some smashed shells, probably from sea gulls dropping them on the rocks to get at the meat inside).



And I loved the smell of the salt marsh all around.

Half-Day in Boston

From the same trip with the Cambridge morning walk and Salem in 25 photos…

Boston Museum of Fine Arts



Mary Baker Eddy Library





At the library, there's the Mapparium - a huge walk-in glass globe you can stand right in the middle of. The globe dates from the 1930s, so it's a snapshot of the world then. Wasn't allowed to take photos in it, but here's a look from the website.

Week in Seven Words #195 and #196

#195
ambiguity
The child finds the balloon entrancing. The dog backs away from it with a growl.

appraising
He's young but speaks like a savvy consumer, confident of what's a quality product and what isn't.

erratic
I've bumped into them, careened off of them, and have no particular desire to see them again.

facade
When you speak with him, he'll look past your shoulder at the next prospect. I feel like I'm standing outside a vacated building, talking at it.

mold
She will only be satisfied when she breaks me. Of course, she doesn't see it that way. She sees it as helping me.

partisanship
He makes it a point, wherever he goes, to wear a hat covered in political pins, with additional pins on his lapel and the front of his jacket. His appearance is more an endorsement for the other party than for his own.

pollyanna
Sometimes I find it difficult to believe that he can look at us all and really believe in what he says. His words come up against the harsh reality of who we are.

Week in Seven Words #186

airless
A lack of productivity is suffocating.

bullish
The cashiers summon customers by waving red flags.

complacently
A number of people think that 'natural' automatically means 'desirable' or 'immutable.'

deadwood
Branches snap and fall, no longer able to bear their own weight.

impositions
An inability to handle uncertainty lies at the heart of so much misery and evil.

rack
Can people change in their essentials? It's hard enough to get rid of a single bad habit. What about five or ten of them? What about the dark, habitual thoughts that choke the life out of the mind?

regressed
In the library, two old men fight over a hat. The owner of the hat allegedly took a newspaper away from the other guy, who retaliated by snatching the hat away and refusing to return it. They argue loudly, the hat-owner shrill and indignant, the hat-snatcher muttering filthy insults.

Week in Seven Words #144

I had meant to post this earlier in the week, but better late than never...

crackle
The first time I step outside after the Frankenstorm, the air is cold and raw, like breathing ice crystals.

cramming
Early Sunday morning, the lines at the grocery store spill out the door.

howling
Flickering lights and rain lashing the windows, but thankfully no flooding. No long-term loss of power. Unlike other parts of the city and eastern coastline, which are unrecognizable now.

orbitofrontal
Young kids have a hard time focusing on multiple details. I see it during a game of Dominos where the child pays attention to one feature or number but overlooks another. Juggling details simultaneously is tough.

pococurante
I want to smack the people who go online to tell everyone that the coming storm is "hyped up" and that there's no need to evacuate or prepare for it in any way.

refuge
People clustered at the library looking for a warm place to read, sleep and use the Internet for the first time in a couple of days.

skewed
If they lose the first game, they tell me it isn't fair if I win the second one too. Even if the game is purely chance, a matter of how the dice land, they still want me to lose somehow, to appease their notion of fairness and make things right with the world.

Week in Seven Words #108

banality
Online dating has been mostly a bore so far. When you meet people in person you experience them as the complex 3D creatures they are, and not as small photos supplemented with the same descriptions over and over - "intelligent, fun-loving, one-of-a-kind" - like personal ads in a Lake Wobegon newspaper.

fulcrum
Time has to be balanced in your mind so that you don't tip too much into the future or sink too frequently into the past.

indurated
In the night my thoughts are cold black diamonds.

reaching
I talk into the phone, knowing that he's there at the other end even though I can't hear him.

second-rate
Sometimes you look back on your week to find that one of your prominent memories involves a pitched battle with a backed-up toilet. Oh well.

slipping
When I'm feeling low about my writing I think of the words as weak magnets sliding down the front of a fridge.

sussing
At the library I spot a DVD Whisperer. He caresses their spines and speaks to each one - "Should I watch you tonight? Or you?" - then cocks his head and listens for the answer.

Week in Seven Words #107

passive-aggressive
The clerks at the library have sullenness down to an art. They would rather be anywhere than here, scanning your books and DVDs, and they let you know it with every dead-eyed resentful look.

quiescent
On the train he nods off beside me, clutching his backpack to his stomach. He's quiet, asleep, self-contained - a great neighbor for a train ride.

ricocheting
Playing soccer in the corridor, I feel like I'm in a pinball machine, trying to keep the ball from zig-zagging into doorways and slamming off the walls.

spelunker
She can't yet clear the couch, not consistently, so she settles for crawling under it, flattening out and squirming around in the dust, only her hind feet showing us where she is.

squinch
A steel bowl and in it strawberries, and over those, blackberries - the kind of blackberries that will always bring to mind Galway Kinnell's poem "Blackberry Eating" where the berries are so plump, firm and juicy you don't just eat them, you squinch and splurge well on them.

tackling
He reads four books to me, making his way through them with determination. The most daunting one is Green Eggs and Ham - 60 odd pages - but once you've seen 'could' and 'would' a few dozen times you're less likely to trip up on those silent 'L's.

truce
The city is gentle dark and damp after the rain. I'd like to think that bad things can't happen on an evening like this.

Week in Seven Words #96

aa
Thanks to my Scrabble partner I find out that this is a kind of rough basaltic lava. It's also a great way to get rid of superfluous vowels and fit words into tight corners of the board.

flavor
It's a small cozy café with pizza, lasagna, salads and soups, and only a handful of tables. What makes the place itself special is one of the people who works there. He flirts and jokes, and in the middle of our meal walks up to us and shares a tale about a carpenter who reunites a pair of estranged brothers by building a bridge over the river that separates their properties.

priorities
I'm heading down the street on wobbly legs. Clearly I need to lie down. But first, a stop at the library.

residuum
Recently this stretch of sidewalk had a leafy golden roof, grand and bright like a corridor in an Oriental palace. Now it looks gutted, the leaves gone and the branches like brittle kindling.

smarting
As I approach the river the wind rakes through me, and even the buildings shiver.

sprightly
I bring Fantasia with me and watch them laugh at the dancing hippos and the fairies spreading rime and dewdrops on pliant leaves.

trepidation
With every phone call I feel a spike of tension. I don't know what the news will be on the other end. I can only pray for the best.

Week in Seven Words #93

cradled
I'm walking on the open palm of a beautiful day. There's water, gold and orange trees, blue skies holding rain clouds at bay. I feel raw and tired inside but the day is gentle.

cultivation
School is giving him a certain knowingness. He's starting to pick up spelling and reading, the ways of the world, the lingo of kindergarten (awesome!).

lane
Taking the long way home I find a lovely street, quiet and shaded with trees. I'm glad I chose to walk off some of my restlessness and map out a new neighborhood on foot.

locus
Two branches of the public library within a block of each other. A prime piece of real estate.

persistence
In the room where I've been run through a proofreading test I see a motivational poster on the wall depicting a pencil stub and the word Persistence, followed by this line: We've exhausted all possibilities... let's get started.

subway
In a strange way I've missed this: the stale breath of the station, the rumble of approaching trains, the clatter of trains pulling into or speeding past the platform.

treasured
Dusk settles in the afternoon. Buildings and statues catch the last light and hold it close for as long as they can.

Week in Seven Words #92

chutzpah
A library has no business being closed.

detours
Side streets beckon to us as we walk. Their houses and trees are pressed close, their sidewalks are rumpled and scratchy with fallen leaves. They're dotted with pumpkins, and their windows peek out from shutters and flower boxes.

jolted
Revelations on a Friday afternoon. I have just enough time to send out some emails and make a couple of calls before I abstain from technology for the next twenty-five hours. Monday will be here soon enough. Meanwhile I need to retreat into my Friday night and wait. Patiently.

multifunctional
In the park the fountain is drained. The water has given way to scattered leaves and children barreling around in the basin on tricycles.

proliferation
'What-ifs' and 'if-onlys' can breed and multiply and take hold of your soul if you let them.

solace
What comforts me: singing aloud, which brings a kind of catharsis. Meaningful reading, which shores up my sense of purpose. Another person's laughter, which spreads joy.

wince
It hurts me to see you hurt, she says, grimacing at my bandaged wrist.

Week in Seven Words #88

communication
It's fitting that they find out this week, at the start of the new year. It isn't when I'd planned on telling them, but it doesn't matter. Maybe I'll be less reticent this year.

relinquish
Every day I dump books into the steely mouth of the return bin, where they rumble away into silence.

soften
The light of day's end on a pale brick wall.

symbolize
What I eat this week, among other things: pomegranate seeds and a few small pieces from the head of a trout.

talkative
Two good places for a conversation: the front steps of my apartment building at night, and a sunny paved courtyard rimmed with trees and stone ledges.

timing
On Yom Kippur, during a quiet section of the afternoon prayers, a marching band sweeps past our windows; the trumpets, drums, flutes and trombones break into the solemn hush.

willpower
Three qualities I wish for in plenitude: persistence, discipline, and courage.

Week in Seven Words #82

bustle
Without all the work of writing papers one would think I'd be less busy, but instead the days are cluttered with chores I'd postponed, errands to run, an apartment to neaten and organize in preparation for a new life.

conduit
I walk down a puddly brick corridor lined with trees, white flowers, and benches soaked in rainwater.

drupaceous
Slices of white peach on a damp paper plate.

gratis
Getting a library card is always a happy occasion. On this one the largest word is FREE, written in white letters on a red background. It reminds me of Emily Dickinson: How frugal is the Chariot/That bears a Human soul.

hull
The library's second floor is one long room with a raftered ceiling and some skylights showing sun and tumbling clouds. It's cozier than I expected, tables and shelves packed close together, babies crawling around among heaps of board books in the children's section by the picture window. We're in a boat voyaging across a quiet ocean; the skies are untroubled.

hypnagogic
Ten pm at the supermarket; I'm in a floaty-minded relaxed mood. Fellow shoppers include: an off-duty security guard, her face waxy with exhaustion; a mother herding a pack of squalling overtired children; a middle-aged man in a cut-off tee buying huge bottles of organic fruit juice. It's been a long day. I stop by the snow-white onions and try to figure out where the bananas have been relocated to.

temblor
The ground shakes. Shortly after, we shake hands and part. An unexpected earthquake coincides with a meeting that marks a change in the course of my life.

Week in Seven Words #72

edulcoration
After it's rained, the clean smell of trees, earth, and evergreen shrubs.

moppet
Two smudgy handprints on the door at knee level. A child has pressed up against the glass to look out and to try to push the door open; the handle is still out of reach.

nitty-gritty
Over an hour's worth of conversations with an insurance rep, a bank rep, and a customer service rep for a huge labyrinthine company. Not the best way to start the morning, but to my joy each person I speak to seems lucid and willing to help, and it could have dragged on longer.

pealing
Laughter is a kind of escape, a beautiful cloud of noise to sink into several seconds here and there while forgetting dignity, worries, and mostly everything else.

readjustment
No epiphanies; instead a painstaking process of discovery that could very well lead to failure. At least I'm learning; nothing's wasted, not time or brain cells, if I've learned something.

tormented
A bumblebee dying just inside the doors of a grocery store, only several feet away from the flowers in cellophane and the crates of fruit.

vertiginous
In the library the shelves are long, the aisles between them are narrow, and the books come in so many different colors and sizes, that I have trouble focusing my eyes. If I don't look mostly at the floor I get dizzy.

Week in Seven Words #66

advanced
At the bookstore the four-year-old boy keeps asking his mom to buy him books that are geared towards young teenagers and older elementary school children. After saying 'no' for the dozenth time, his mother finally makes him an offer - "Read one page from any of those books and I'll get it for you." The kid opens a book, stares at it, then says loftily, "I don't feel like reading now. How about I read it when we get home?" His mother laughs but doesn't relent.

indecision
As if I'm plucking petals off a daisy, but instead of saying "He loves me, he loves me not" it's "I can do this, no I can't."

jabbering
Children spill into the cafeteria, squashing ten to a table, swiping at brownies and slices of pizza, sending up a cloud of chatter that their chaperones attempt to shout over.

lightwell
I've walked past this building many times, but I go inside now and take delight - clerestory windows, doors with leaded glass, a giant ornate clock, stairwells curling up past stacks of books.

snorfle
The joy of making someone laugh so hard they have to slap their hand over their mouth to keep crumbs and pieces of cheese from flying out.

strung
Throughout the meeting I'm on edge. Some of what we discuss seems helpful, but I'm not sure. I don't want to be misled.

supportive
I appreciate their encouragement and advice so much. I'll need to let them know.