Week in Seven Words #578

This covers the week of 2/14/21 - 2/20/21.

ache

We used to sit in this room with its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and the lamplight on the red couch.

belly

They don't have sleds, but they do have bellies, so they slide down the hill head first, eyes squinting against the dazzle of sunlight on snow.

glimpses

Beyond the dense branches there's light, white and faintly purple.

moved

The silence of snow falling. At the bus stop, he says a brief prayer.

perching

She's gained access to the roof, and from there, she feeds birds.

unbroken

The fact that I have a good night's sleep is worth commenting on. I don't take it for granted.

wobble

Without his job, his days have turned to jello.

Week in Seven Words #574

This covers the week of 1/17/21 - 1/23/21.

barely

Running water in a denuded wood. The bareness makes us wish for a fir or a pine. There's only some greenness – crisp holly leaves by a splintering log.

checkup

His office is comforting and old-fashioned. The sofas are upholstered in blue and yellow, and in a glass case he's arranged a variety of charmingly odd statues. Dust is the dominant smell, with a hint of aftershave. The appointment takes a while, longer than expected, but I'm glad he isn't rushing through it. The results feel more exact.

disturbing

She assumes I slept better because I stayed up reading a book. But the truth is I don't know why I sleep better on some nights and worse on others.

fragrant

The wood chips from different evergreens give off a sweet aroma like mango.

needing

I needed to hear that I have what I need. (Besides trust. I need more trust.)

subject

I don't know what a given conversation will be like. Sometimes, it's about the pandemic and what's happening to the economy. Other times, it's about eggless cake batter and nothing else.

tamed

The heating unit that has been squealing is now purring.

Week in Seven Words #572

This covers the week of 1/3/21 - 1/9/21.

abed

Tousled hair, face smushed into the pillow, cold air leaking in.

attends

Applying for a job, she wonders how she can make her qualifications look more impressive. "Doesn't fall asleep during Zoom meetings, usually," is a good one.

continue

Stay calm, and keep writing.

friend

Whenever I hear from her, I think about how glad I am that we're friends.

incapacitated

Once seated at the piano, she merely stares at the keys. She doesn't know how to begin, because inside her there's no music, only knots of fear.

morbid

As soon as I start slipping into helpless spectator mode, I try to wrench my attention away from the news.

unsteadily

Buildings in the background, denuded trees in the foreground, and slick muddy paths that make the world wobble.

Week in Seven Words #553

This covers the week of 8/23/20 - 8/29/20.

derange

The man moves like a jumping electric wire. He's tormented to the roots of himself. Staggering up and down the street, he raves about how the industry used to want differences but now wants sameness. Homogeneity in opinions, looks, and creative ideas. I don't know which industry he's talking about. His description fits more than one. In his creased suit, and with his briefcase swinging and shuddering, he belongs to no workplace now.

layers

I've walked down this street a bunch of times without knowing that its name alludes to three activists from the Civil Rights Movement who were killed while helping register black voters in the South.

resting

I stay in bed later than usual, grateful for several hours of uninterrupted sleep.

solidarity

An old man whispers to the young man working at the pharmacy, "You're at this job to land rich widows." When the young man splutters, the old one says, "No shame in that."

splashing

Sparrows in an ecstasy of puddles.

sprinkle

Rain nips at us at the end of our walk, a drizzle after all the breathless warnings about a major storm.

trapped

She chides me for eating too much chocolate. Then she offers me chocolate.

Week in Seven Words #536

This covers the week of 4/26/20 - 5/2/20.

beset

Pulses of weariness and despair.

breaks

Two brisk walks in one day. Lots of screen time in between.

flutters
A puddle filled with pink blossoms and shivering birds.

glassy

New construction all looks the same to me: sleek rectangles with large windows and little artistry.

insomnia

It's no use asking my brain why it's woken me up in the middle of the night. Maybe it wants me to admire the shadowy room, and the way the light creeps over the walls.

patrolling

A flock of police officers on bikes. Black masks are stretched over their mouths and noses. They're on the lookout for legal violations, which these days include picnics and outdoor birthday parties.

screens

She tells me that the schools aren't giving grades. Regardless of grades, are the students learning anything from their sessions of screen time? Debatable.

Week in Seven Words #511

This covers the week of 11/3/19 - 11/9/19.

displayed
It's a bright, vivid street, even at dusk. The windows glow with everything I won't or can't buy.

ethical
She's trying to do something ethical with her data science work, conscious as she is of how data can be used to manipulate people, deprive them of privacy, or deny them favorable decisions in unfair ways that are difficult or even impossible to appeal.

gnawed
The fog has feasted on the skyscraper, eating away the steel.

jet lag
Night after night, waking up in the middle of the night, to the flat, dark hours.

outdated
He tries to hook up old speakers to an old computer. "Houston, we have a problem," I say, and we make crackling static noises and laugh.

pinning
She makes claims that force you into a defensive mode. For example, her questions already contain what she considers the true answer. She doesn't ask to genuinely inquire.

rubble
I think of what needs to be rebuilt, and I shiver at what it will take.

Week in Seven Words #506

This covers the week of 9/29/19 - 10/5/19.

autumnal
The leaves are turning a spangly orange and gold. Coolness is working its way into the warmth of the day.

kindly
I respect how attentive she is to other people. She pauses in the middle of praying to make sure someone has a seat, and to soothe an elderly lady who thinks she's been transported to a date decades earlier.

mailing
The kids find a way to amuse themselves by chucking their shoes through a hole in the net. "Special delivery!" they shout.

multitask
When I return, I find her asleep on the couch with her fingers still suspended in front of her, her freshly painted nails drying. As good a time as any to catch up on some sleep.

pained
She's seized by moments of querulousness, and it's best to let them slide. Her hours are often pinched with pain, and one day washes into another.

purpose
What I touch I must try to make good.

salvaging
It's impossible to start over completely, he says with dimmed eyes, but you do the best you can.

Week in Seven Words #475

catnap
As his wife and kids explore the plaza, a man dozes on a ledge with his feet in an empty stroller.

chatter
The kids, small and roughly the same age, form a messy row at the restaurant counter. They remind me of teacups, piping, clattering, releasing whirls of steam.

deliberation
The hamburger is a salt lick, but the conversation is good. Half-eaten food and intense discussion.

headlights
Lights dance on the ceiling in dots and rhombuses.

quelling
"Can we go on the rides?" the child asks. "This is a museum," her mother replies. "There are no rides."

summoned
In the park, music from a hoarse violin. A bird makes tentative hops towards the violinist.

transporter
Celebrating the conclusion of a stressful obligation with a personal pizza and episodes of a show set in outer space, many light years from here.

Week in Seven Words #467

affection
Squeezed into a seat on the subway, a young girl hugs her younger brother on her lap and kisses him repeatedly on the back of the head.

coloring
She soaks her feet in a foot bath with a bath bomb that dyes her legs faintly blue.

idly
The boats on the pier are massive and idle. A gangplank has extended from one of them but no one walks on it. It's a drowsy day.

massively
The massive clouds make the buildings by the harbor look small and brittle.

posture
Asleep in his seat, he has bent forward so much, his face is parallel to the floor.

security
Gates and guards and more gates around an ominous complex that makes us nervous just going near it, as if there's an unseen line we can't cross unless we want to fall under suspicion.

streets
We walk on streets that are chiseled like diamonds, the glass buildings cut in spectacular shapes. We also walk on streets that are narrow and made narrower by heaps of garbage bags.

Week in Seven Words #429

awake
She can't figure out why she's having trouble sleeping. Nothing she tries helps her enjoy a night of unbroken sleep. "Is it the way everything's structured?" I wonder. "Is sleeplessness a built-in feature to the way we structure our lives?" She tells me that this is what an insomniac colleague said as well.

broadening
The paths along the stream have become brighter and clearer. Rock bridges and little peninsulas with viewing points have opened up, and yellow flowers grow in bunches by the water.

flourish
In the garden, a young, fair boy brandishes a daffodil and says, "Behold!"

soldierly
I spot a red-winged blackbird. It has gold and red bars on its upper wings that remind me of epaulettes.

tranquilly
A man and his son gaze at a small pond in a quiet part of the woods in the park. The pond is barely ruffled by the stream that flows into it. "This is a mosquito breeding ground," the boy says. "That's what I was thinking!" his dad replies. They laugh a little.

unanswered
He turns the question around on his teacher. "What's your purpose?" he asks. His teacher replies, "I'm still figuring it out."

unequal
The stress reduction tips promoted by his workplace amount to giving employees a plastic spoon and encouraging them to dig into a mountain.

Week in Seven Words #419

bleariness
Sleeplessness chases me throughout the week, catching and dragging at each day and leaving the nights unsettled.

electrify
She's shuffle-dancing with sparkling sneakers on a dark street.

enervating
The book club meets in a mildewy room that's washed of color by fluorescent lights.

ricotta
A large, shimmering, melting moon glimpsed in the early morning at the end of the street, over the slate gray river.

subterrene
When he suffers anxiety over a trivial issue, he needs to remind himself to consider the true source of his fears. It isn't the triviality. That's only a mask for the larger, deeper thing that gnaws at him.

unrelenting
Her story is a dead horse flogged with angst. Tens of thousands of words of angst: fire, deaths, abuse, amnesia, comas. She's dragging her characters by the heels through hot coals across a continent.

watering
Each time she plucks a string on her guitar, there's a sensation of a raindrop landing in my mind.

Week in Seven Words #368

chow
She's catering the party. The doughy, salty, sweet dishes are spread across the counter.

redirect
The park has been carved out of a rocky hill. You think you're heading north, but really, you're climbing to a lookout point. It's a beautiful detour. You head back down, and again attempt to make your way north. Now you're in a garden. Could these stairs take you out of the park? No, you wind up at another lookout point. Best make yourself comfortable. Here's a bench.

serpentarium
He has turned a part of the basement into a sanctuary for snakes. They live in drawers and pails. Many of them are stuffed animals, and the rest are plastic, but he takes the trouble to feed them and set up a program for breeding them.

shorting
There's this frustrating thing that happens in conversations. People hear the name of a person or thing they don't like, and their brain blows a fuse. From thoughtful, complete sentences, they go to slogans and taunting names. They begin to raise their voice, and the intelligence leaves their eyes.

suggesting
As she sleeps, expressions drift across her face - a wrinkle of fussiness, the glow of a passing smile.

surfing
With his face mashed into a couch cushion he says, "Why am I watching this garbage when there's other garbage on?"

tidily
They have trim beards and pleasant smiles, colorful graphs on PowerPoint slides. And they make economics sound so straightforward.

Week in Seven Words #362

clamor
The clock, striking a late hour, gets shouted down by police sirens.

engage
They bring her out on a blue leash. Immediately, she's on my lap, squirming, sniffing, and sticking her head in my tote bag, where I've tucked away some treats for her.

insistently
A toddler stands before a taller doll and interrogates it. The doll, unresponsive, receives a finger to the eye for remaining aloof.

pat
The church has strung together signs on its lawn with slogans that try to demonstrate that it's welcoming (or the preferred word, "inclusive") to anyone who wants to attend. The slogans ring empty, a cut-and-paste job.

pools
Candle wax in multiple colors melts in psychedelic streams and puddles.

slack
The man on the sofa dozes beneath a portrait of an alert military leader.

snugness
In the glow of the lamp, a pink bedspread scented with lavender and mint.

Week in Seven Words #279

bound
As we approach the lake, we hear a girl cry, "Kimmy! Kimmy!" Her voice is urgent. Is a child drowning? But there's no sense of emergency at the scene. The people standing along the shore are interested in what's going on, but not tense or afraid. Kimmy, as it turns out, is a dog. We see her head poking out of the water as she paddles towards a small wooded island in the middle of the lake. Her owner calls her from the shore, to no effect. She lands on the island and disappears into the scrub. Some time later, a rowboat with police and park rangers heads out to capture her. By the time we finish walking around the lake, she's at he bottom of the boat, exhausted and sopping, her adventure over.

chattering
The trees are maracas filled with birds.

contained
The ones who remain silent, what do they think? From time to time, they smile or frown. Other people talk past them. At the end of the meeting, they slip outside without looking at anyone.

display
Ten different crayon drawings of Helen Keller on a backdrop of concrete and construction paper.

iron
A girl with fierce, matted hair rides her bike up and down the hill, over and over, as if she wants to flatten it under her wheels.

rediscovery
I'm the only one who shows up for his lecture. He takes it in stride, telling me that even if I fall asleep, he'll benefit; he'll at least get a chance to revisit his thoughts, maybe experience new insights.

slumber
All around her, people eat, talk, and laugh, the kids chasing each other. She sleeps, her head on her arm. I don't know why, but I get the sense it's the first time she's been at peace all day.

Week in Seven Words #127

filament
A friend I haven't seen or spoken to in years, speaks to me in a gift I find while cleaning out a drawer: a little jewelry box and in it a small scrolling paper bearing a message about dreams, beauty, and light. Her name signed at the bottom.

impassioned
Ray Charles sang the best rendition of "America the Beautiful" I've heard so far.

larded
A paper made indigestible by jargon.

nonpartisan
Napping on a hot afternoon is the best way to stay clear of trouble.

panicled
Purple hydrangea blossoms and books neatly stacked on my newly tidied desk.

retrogress
Without knowing it, they push me towards making the same unsuitable choices as before.

sobering
The rumble of fireworks and the sigh and shout of the crowds are pierced from time to time by an ambulance or firetruck wailing in the distance.

Week in Seven Words #119

asynchronous
More sunlight is what I need. So I go for a walk. Turns out the weather is cloudy and cool, but at least it doesn't rain, and I enjoy being outdoors. As soon as I get home, the sun comes out.

crisp
Papery green leaves layer the trees outside my building. I want to pluck a leaf off its branch and write on it. If I knew origami I'd fold it into a turtle or set it on the wind as a swan.

emanate
In her sleep she sings, proving that music will always find a way to be heard.

exacting
We may be at different stages in life, but here's one way we're alike - we're too hard on ourselves. She's been told she's strong, but she says she doesn't feel strong inside. I tell her that her actions are what count. In spite of any fear or misgivings she's always done her best; she has behaved with courage and dignity and love. It's unrealistic to never feel fear, to always feel strong, especially for someone in her circumstances.

inedible
The store is closing for the summer, and the only things left on the shelves are food products depicted on their labels as starchy yellow lumps with unappetizing names.

infarct
The elevator sounds like it's suffering a heart attack. Will it hold out long enough to get us to the right floor?

nerds
A comment about someone's Facebook photo turns into a discussion of the Battle of Gettysburg and then the Civil War more generally. I'm among my people.