Week in Seven Words #563

This covers the week of 11/1/20 - 11/7/20.

buckling

Some stores are getting boarded up again in the event that election results don't turn out as preferred. At least the bookstore is still open.

denizens

Today what engages her mind are the fissures in the rocks. She wonders about the creatures that live in them, real and fantastic.

electoral

Can't get much work done when there's a map of the U.S. to stare at.

forgiveness

"It's easier to forgive others than forgive yourself," she says. I wonder: Do I forgive others more easily because I know them less well, or is it because I see them more clearly than I see myself? 

painfully

The cramps are so painful that when I hear the kettle shrieking, I think the sound is coming from inside my own head.

self-loathing

Self-loathing can feel like a scratchy but familiar sweater. At some point, she forgot that she had the option to remove it. Now she tries to, but can't pull her arms out of the sleeves.

unreassuring

I hear a lot about "a return to normalcy" and "putting the adults back in charge." For many people, this means wanting to know less and think less about the effects of policies and the behavior of politicians. It means less bother and more apathy.

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 #487

alimentary
A narrow path takes us through a narrow park. I get the feeling that I'm in an alimentary canal, a digestive tract. There's enough food and shit scattered around to strengthen that impression.

anxiety
Anxiety is like clinging to a salt-caked rock miles from shore as cold waves slap you around.

chariness
A cat investigates the automatic doors. She's too small to open them on her own. When a human passes through, she sticks her head and some of her body into the gap but quickly pulls back as the doors close. Maybe she's afraid of being trapped in the building, an unfamiliar place that smells heavily of humans and disinfectants.

ditch
Decades later, she still behaves like an unloved little girl not getting enough attention from her parents.

gorge
She eats cake with popping, slurping noises.

indignity
She has tripped and is lying facedown with her face in her hands. What hurts her more than the bruising is the awareness of a crowd around her, staring.

rubber band
She walks away from the math problem and for a few minutes pretends it isn't lurking in her notebook. With a sigh, she returns to it. Solves it. Smiles.

Week in Seven Words #435

appearances
They're a young couple, boyfriend and girlfriend, looking like they've stepped hand-in-hand out of an ad for chewing gum or smartphone accessories. They're also deep in conversation. As they pass us by, I overhear a part of it. They're discussing whether it's possible to stab someone to death with a pencil.

enthuse
Most of the people in the group are men, and tough-looking men at that, but never mind the stereotypes, because they enjoy making the flower arrangements and giving each other (and the women) supportive comments over the creation of lovely little bouquets inserted into small silver-colored vases.

figurative
In the subway car, a young boy shimmies up one of the poles, shouts, "I'm a Tetris piece!" and slides down.

impressions
The room is dim, and incense burns by a small statue of Buddha. When asked if he's Buddhist, he replies that he isn't but was just trying to create a certain ambiance. A shoeless, quiet-voiced, spicy-smelling atmosphere of meditation.

murmurings
Leaf patting leaf, and one branch rustling to another.

sliced
She thrusts her hand into the soil and jerks it out with a gasp. Her finger is bleeding. She's been cut through her glove. Her first worry is that she's gotten nicked by a piece of glass or, worse, a discarded needle, but it turns out to be a thorn.

split
Pretending that mind and body are disconnected is terrible for one's health. Referring to the body as a mere "sack of meat" – to be disregarded or modified in whatever way you imagine – is profoundly damaging.

Week in Seven Words #387

concealment
Bored, he texts me from the party to list all the places where he could hide from the other guests. The shrubs by the pool provide good coverage. There's room for most of him behind the piano in the den.

freshening
I love an early Sunday walk when the light is soft and the streets are mostly empty.

humbling
I'm beaten badly by two children at Settlers of Catan. They rob me of all my resources. They laugh as I lose my lumber and ore.

refusal
There are different ways of saying good-bye. One is to avoid saying it at all, to turn away at the moment of parting and slip into another room.

soothed
She sits in a blanket nest on the bed and frets. I cup her cute bald head in my hand, and she calms.

teeming
A sulfurous odor leaks out of the pails of water he's set up in the basement for his plastic animals. He's lined some of the pails with dirt from the backyard, and without knowing it has invited new kinds of organisms into his collection, alive and bacterial.

unignorable
I don't pay attention to the tendons in my feet, until one of them painfully, insistently reminds me that it exists.

Week in Seven Words #354

apply
He's bored reading about U.S. labor laws from the early 20th century. Then he comes across a YouTube video about the labor conditions for smartphone manufacturing. He starts to pay more attention, make connections.

captivating
The fountain has three statues of women spinning in dance, hand-in-hand. It's ringed by flowers, and as the flowers draw bees, the fountain draws people to take photos, and to kneel by its side and run their fingers through the dark water.

driving
The storm whips up dirt and litter. In the stinging rain, discarded cups whirl around. With clothes soaked, I wait under an awning with several others. The wind steers the rain to us.

gift
A handful of hours made for a walk on wooded paths along pools and streams.

pocket
The park is a handful of benches and a bit of greenery in an alley. The bricks catch at the sunlight, and flies swarm in the moist shade.

pup
A woman relaxes on a blanket with a dog tucked against the curve of her waist.

sharp
An insect bite crackling with pain.

Week in Seven Words #333

dumping
After getting picked on, he picks on another kid. Watching his pain play out in someone else is satisfying.

invite
There are people who say, "You can tell me anything!" and then react with rejection, contempt, or rage the moment it sounds like something they don't want to hear. Not long after, they'll repeat, with a pristine memory, that you can tell them anything.

ocherous
The river has an orange and silver shimmer. In the foreground, cars race past with headlights like fireflies.

parameters
The adulthood his parents show him seems easy to master. There's a small set of correct beliefs. There's a larger set of beliefs to pay lip service to and mock in private. There are certain people it's ok to laugh at and wound. Always act as if you know what you're doing.

puppies
Four of them have tumbled on a diamond-patterned blanket. Their faces give them a free pass on all mischief.

refreshed
She's happy I call her on her birthday. I'm happy I didn't talk myself out of it with the usual excuses: it wouldn't matter, she doesn't know me well, I'd just be bothering her...

snooze
He's presenting a complex lecture, and all it takes is ten seconds(?) of zoning out for me to lose the thread. Like a cat batting at yarn, my brain goes after it, before curling up to nap for the remaining fifteen minutes.

Week in Seven Words #284

delaying
Eyeing an assignment sidelong - a tough one, and I wish I could put it off. But if I do that, it will expand in my mind like a tentacled beast, throttling other thoughts.

dribble
Sneakers squeak on the indoor basketball court. Athletic giants peer down at the players from a mural that runs along the upper part of the wall.

nestling
In a coffee shop where the light doesn't reach every corner, we're huddled over tea and plates of pastries. The window is smudged with dirt and rain.

oversight
The sign says, "Do not smoke on this bench or near this bench." Maybe it will be replaced soon by a sign that clarifies what 'near' means - three feet? Five feet? Ten? We can't leave these things to chance. People need to be told exactly what to do. Make sure a security camera is pointing at the bench too, just in case.

shrunken
"I've seen it all," he says. But no, he hasn't. He just feels like he has. And for the time being he lacks the energy to risk any new experiences. He's retreated, hurt, and the world looks inhospitable to him. But comforting, because he's made it smaller than it is. He can pretend to see into its far corners. Nothing will surprise him.

varicolored
The fountain erupts in a shower of light, like a watery fireworks show.

winged
She's arranged the flowers to look like butterflies, circling and landing.

Week in Seven Words #275

detritus
We don't know the stories of these rocks and trees. Pacts broken, glaciers retreating, branches stripped and gathered for firewood on desolate nights.

heading
I walk from one bus stop to another. The bus never comes, so I keep walking.

java
Still feel the tingle of that cappuccino foam on my tongue. The most memorable cappuccino ever. I doubt I'll find coffee like it in local shops.

obstruction
A clearing covered in short straggly grass. No trees grow there, because a few feet under the soil there's a building, ruined.

rearing
Statues on horseback among budding trees.

venting
The cab driver trades complaints on speaker phone: siblings, girlfriends, friends, the physical pains of aging. At a red light, the man on the other end hangs up. The driver tips his head back against the seat and closes his eyes.

vigor
People get wheeled out to the crowd of tulips. Red, yellow, purple and white - so alive in their plot by the hospital.

Week in Seven Words #269

abeyance
Winter is still on the gardens. The paths are empty, the domes and crenellated walls deserted. Everywhere there's a cold, fuzzy silence.

claimed
Geese have claimed the soccer fields, the gazebo by the river. Branches have fallen across the path that feeds into the deep woods. By a gap in the fence, a hole has opened up in the earth and filled with gray water.

confined
Restless people pace inside the mansion, their fingers tracing walnut furniture. Before each window they stop to study the river. They wish they could leap out of their skin and race to the water. Maybe one day. They turn from each window and take up pacing.

crammed
PowerPoint slides frustrate him. They're too small for what he needs to say. His words and numbers run on, in ever tinier fonts, as he fills the available space.

edible
Homes with cream trimming, cherry-colored shutters.

gutted
Even when she talks about a triumph, her voice wavers with pain. She can't believe in her own success. She's convinced that she succeeded only by chance.

percolating
The coffee pours warmth into chilled wet feet and fingers nipped with cold.

Week in Seven Words #268

cantankerous
The dark building scowls at the street, its face scarred by scaffolding. The names by each mailbox are peeling off like scabs.

lazing
I'm tired of the expression "politically correct." It's become a knee-jerk criticism, a shortcut in thought.

liberated
Half of the fence has collapsed towards the house, the other half towards the lawn. An evergreen shrub has thrust itself into the gap.

ribbing
A broken umbrella tumbles between the cars, tickling them as it goes.

smirking
Another expression I'm tired of - more than tired of, I'd like to pulverize it with my fists - is "good intentions." It's an excuse, a deflection, a pat on the back. A false innocence, a willful ignorance.

unattainable
Some people show you a love like the horizon. It'll be yours, they say, if you keep struggling towards it, on land, by sea, with everything in you. One day you'll have their love. Just make an effort. A real effort. Break yourself on the dream of it.

unshackled
Behind a restaurant, a waiter puts out his cigarette and break dances. Pigeons rocket away.

Week in Seven Words #253

covert
She's hidden things behind her books - keys to cabinets, necklace pendants, folded letters. She says it's extra protection against casual burglars; they won't rifle through her shelves. But I also suspect it's her romantic streak. She's always wanted the kind of bookcase that would hide a secret, like a door that springs open when you pull out a volume of Donne's poetry.

demolishing
The book I use as a sledgehammer, to smash obstructions in my mind.

ducking
He has always crouched behind a shield. Currently, it's his wife. As long as he's with her, he's protected. No one looks too closely at him.

filling
Strange how the book leaves us both satisfied and empty.

olio
He has in his speech flavors of other countries. He's brimful of anecdotes about bodyguards and bugged hotel rooms, spicy cuisine and off-the-road ruins.

redolence
A begonia in a copper-colored pot, and a cup of orange spice tea.

reversals
Two months earlier, she was fine. Now she has health problems and a career in tailspin through no fault of her own. She speaks in disbelief about her life.

Week in Seven Words #249

bruised
Even when discussing happier memories, her eyes have a wounded look. Much of what she's seen, she can't explain and doesn't want to think about.

busied
Pouring tea is her escape from uncomfortable conversation.

grotto
The cobwebbed elegance of the small café. Bats soar among ruby-red plants. A prim little cheesecake bathes in golden light.

land mine
It's startling when during a conversation with a mild-mannered person you stumble on the one topic that brings a savage light to their eyes.

lettered
Confounded by 'which' - is it 'which' or 'wich'?

measured
A slow swirl of his spoon in the coffee, the way planets revolve around the sun.

scapegoat
He screams at the supermarket cashier because the store closed two minutes ago, and now he can't get his groceries. He hollers into the night. The cashier could be a parent, a boss, a lover who's just walked out on him. He stalks away, after promising a harsh review on Yelp.

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 #220 & 221

220

asthmatic
Buses wheezing in the heat, looking battered and ill.

bitterness
They dwell on other people's failures, because they want to justify the lack of risk-taking in their own lives and distract themselves from their profound regrets.

briny
Broken, brown ground and a river that smells like an ocean.

brittle
Judging, measuring, comparing. Never just listening. Never accepting.

emerald
It's a precious green lawn in a neighborhood full of industrial lots, billboards and old apartment houses. Bright flowers have sprung up on it, and people hover around, starved for the simple beauty.

off-putting
"Nobody jumping out of it today," he says in an odd, cheerful voice after staring for a few minutes at the Freedom Tower.

self-defeating
She walks with the group because she wants to improve her fitness, but she gets winded too easily and has trouble keeping up. Discouraged, she settles on a bench and smokes a cigarette.

Week in Seven Words #216 & 217

216

helpless
No one knows who he is, only that he's fallen to the pavement and is sobbing so hard he can't speak.

needed
Garbage bags bulging with skirts, blouses and sweaters.

oasitic
Footsteps echo in the atrium, and faint voices, but all the sounds arrive as from a distance. Birds skim the vaulting glass. There's no breeze, but the trees rustle.

rigidity
He considers the model of masculinity people tried to make him live up to: No feelings, except for anger and physical appetites. No tenderness. An internal world made up of steel girders with huge blank spaces in between.

sapor
Knowledge is a treasure to them and a pleasure to all the senses. They taste new facts. They savor what they learn.

stricken
She looks perpetually stunned by the indifference and cruelty around her. The magnitude of it empties her eyes. She's left with a smile that creases her face but never reaches her eyes.

uninhibited
Actors try to banish their self-conscious impulses. They howl and prance in public. They pretend to be jaguars and squirrels.

217

body
I'm uncomfortable among people who are being cued to do the same thing at the same time: chant, scream, clap or stomp their feet. If they're a large crowd and look like they're really into it, this puts me on edge even more.

exhort
At her age, she's both exploring new opportunities and also warning younger people not to make the same mistakes she made. But they don't all agree with her on what is or isn't a mistake.

gall
She usually likes it when other people are worse off than she is. At the same time, she doesn't want to be uncaring. So she offers comfort and advice. Only there's a bitter satisfaction in her tone that make people turn away from her anyway.

nerves
Branches spasm in the wind.

persevere
Her first impulse is to say it's too difficult and to back off. But then she weighs the disappointment that might come from a failed attempt against the greater regret of never trying.

rumble
The ground is trembling with the trains passing beneath it.

sopping
The vestibule is soaked in the heavy smell of wet coats.

Week in Seven Words #206 & 207

206

controlled
Sometimes the only way to avoid falling is to lower yourself to your knees, by choice, before finding firmer ground to stand on.

dictates
She does her best to convince me to go against my conscience, and she almost succeeds. But at the end, I do what I'll be able to live with.

gendered
Their rooms: a pink glow, a blue cove.

leached
Weary greeters, looking washed out under the fluorescent lights.

prickle
He's uncomfortable with being sensitive, so he hides it with a snotty attitude. She's also sensitive, but she cries when she needs to.

starved
At the head of every line is an elderly person who turns shopping into a social opportunity. Maybe it's the only time that day they'll talk to someone. They'll hold up the line if they need to, by dwelling on the finer points of their receipts and exploring the depths of pockets and bags to stall for time.

thermic
Wearing a winter coat indoors while I work.

207

bone-weary
The voice on the other end of the line is hoarse and quiet.

chalky
Her lips twist as she returns the chocolates. Beneath the foil, she found a stale crumble.

darken
Another light has winked out.

mess
Messy, dirty snow and painful cold.

storytellers
What happens to children whose personal voice has been pounded out of them? How do they regain the ability to tell stories about their lives with some sense of self-assurance?

tracks
They're brisk and efficient. Their mind is always on what they'll be doing next, and what they should be doing according to a magazine, a website, their friends and family and co-workers. They operate on a schedule that's daunting. There are few moments to stop and think; every pause prompts the appearance of a smartphone. And this is why, as friendly as we may be towards each other, we stop short of actual friendship. Sometimes I think it's like the express train vs. the local, occasionally making it to the station at the same time, but on different tracks. But that's an imperfect analogy.

wolfish
In the guise of helping others, they express an intense selfishness.

Week in Seven Words #180

bedeviled
Up on the hill, she sits on a rock, stares at the ground, and silently battles her demons.

exhalation
Night is the best time to slip out. The air is breathable, the sidewalks are mostly empty, and the world is softer and more muted.

leaden
I miss out on a chance to reconnect with her, because a phone call seems like too much effort at the time.

priority
He will fail in part because his parents don't care enough about his success.

pupils
All of the stuffed animals are wide-eyed. Some look gullible; others look stoned. A few have clearly peered into the heart of the universe and discovered the mysteries therein.

sinuous
Romeo and Juliet embrace in the twilight.

tick-tock
They toss the baseball in an arc back and forth; it hits their mitts with a clop. Clop, arc, clop... like a metronome, keeping time at sunset.

Nonfiction Book of the Month: Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Written by a psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz, it's a book that will change your life.

I'll just leave an excerpt here:

As each situation in life represents a challenge to man and presents a problem for him to solve, the question of the meaning of life may actually be reversed. Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.