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 #577

This covers the week of 2/7/21 - 2/13/21.

dork

The role she's been asked to audition for is an improbable one: the effortlessly gorgeous, socially awkward female nerd who's such a dork but never really says or does anything unattractive, she's just, you know, a dork with glasses and fashionable heels.

icy

The pond is clinking with ice, the shores crusty with slush and mud.

knotty

I meet him for the first time beside a tree with a heart-shaped knot.

lacework

Low branches turned to lacework by the snow.

mafia

The head and torso of the snowman are propped up on a bench, like a grim warning from the snowman mafia. ("Double-cross us, and you too will be disassembled before you melt.")

timeworn

It's cute how the author thinks that pairing a character in his 60s with a woman in her 20s is edgy.

unhelpful

"My problems," she says, "are about not asking for help when I need it, and getting the kind of help that holds me back."

Week in Seven Words #576

This covers the week of 1/31/21 - 2/6/21.

complaints

As the elevators fail to come for 15, then 20 minutes, I speak to a neighbor from down the hall who's waiting with me. Over the years, our conversation has never gone beyond greetings. Now we talk about how her ceiling is flaking as if it has a bad case of dandruff. And we talk about the pandemic (wouldn't be a real conversation without pandemic talk).

micturating

A dog urinates on the fallen head of a snowman.

pleasant

Sitting with all of them is like hosting a talk show panel. I turn to each, ask questions, and give them time to speak. I serve as a moderator for interruptions and insults. There's no need for me to share anything about myself.

slush

The center of the frozen lake has softened into dark, slushy water, like a pond inside the lake. Some geese are at its gray edges.

snowfall

After the billows of the blizzard, there's a mesmerizing gentle snowfall.

surfeit

They take a shopping bag full of crumbled bread to the lake, and within minutes, a goose-duck metropolis has sprung up around them.

youthfully

After the dog's leg injury, they've set up a ramp for her against the couch. But she still tries to jump on and off, her energy at odds with her body.

Week in Seven Words #570

This covers the week of 12/20/20 - 12/26/20.

cinnamon

Errands sweetened by puffs of cinnamon-laden wind from the vendors' carts.

frustration

"What's the point?" she asks. "What's the point of learning any of this?" And there isn't an easy answer. Telling her that learning can be good for its own sake would be a glib response.

manifests

With creeping wonder and dread, he realizes that his isolation has made him more like his father.

osculation

Kissing by an arched stone bridge, ducks in a gaggle and the water crisp with ice.

skating

It's easier to talk about books, history, and other topics that aren't deeply personal. I don't often unearth the personal in conversation.

snowman

A towering snowman awaits us on the knoll. The next day, he's still there, looking less robust but still stubbornly upright.

wisecrack

When asked to rate his pain on a scale of 1 to 10, he hesitates before saying, "Pi" (a joke from a TV show he's been watching).

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.

Ides of March Hike: Tarrytown to Van Cortlandt Park

This past Sunday, I went on a group hike from Tarrytown, NY to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. The hike more or less followed a segment of the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail.

It wound up being 18.5 miles (the hike leader had initially estimated 16).

It also should have been scheduled a month from now. The trail was in terrible condition - a sludgy mix of snow, ice, and mud that the hike leader hadn't anticipated (at least not to that extent). And I wore boots that were only casually waterproof; they'd keep your feet dry on a walk home from work in the snow, but not on a messy trail for miles, so my feet got soaked early on.

Had I wanted to (and it was very tempting!), I could have dropped off at a few points before the end. We passed through towns with Metro North train stations that can take you back to NYC. But every time I got to one of those towns, I thought, "I've come this far… so…" And admittedly, had I known the hike would be 2.5 miles longer with the same kind of nasty trail conditions to almost the very end, I maybe would have bailed out at the last drop-off (which was around mile 11). Ignorance can help courage along.

Week in Seven Words #212 & 213

212

confinement
A young tree strait-jacketed by ice.

contorted
In black and white film: the grace of a ballerina and the grip of polio.

engulfed
A snow drift has swallowed up another small business.

fluffy
Sinking a fork into a marble chocolate cheesecake.

outsourcing
It's scary when you realize how much other people have staked their happiness on you, convincing you along the way that you're responsible for their moods.

tribunal
This is the dynamic at the table: there are those who can do no wrong, those who can do nothing right, and those who are judged right or wrong without consistency, based on how their hair looks at a given moment or on what shirt they picked out to wear.

untouched
Sometimes at a restaurant the best moment is when the food just arrives. It looks delicious. At that moment, you think there can be nothing wrong with it.

Week in Seven Words #208 & 209

208

contrary
I tell her that she can sit on the rug, if she likes. She smiles and sits just off the rug, by an inch.

defenses
Kids scale the dirty hills of snow on the curbside. They turn them into ice forts, seared black by the breath of dragons.

promenading
Broken ice parades on the river. One piece looks like a miniature mountain, another like a shallow bowl of soup. A third is bearing birds towards the ocean.

scavenge
Shoppers tear apart a store gone bankrupt.

sophisticate
He's too young to understand the jokes, but old enough to want to laugh along.

sourcing
A small diner. Photos of organically grown vegetables over a grotty ketchup dispenser.

spitting
The beat taps and hisses beneath the melodic line.

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.

Good Short Fiction: Several Tales from 50 Great American Short Stories

Collection: 50 Great American Short Stories
Editor: Milton Crane

Title: Cluney McFarrar's Hardtack
Author: John McNulty
During the Second World War, a veteran of the First World War talks about some of his experiences fighting overseas. He focuses on one night, after a battle, when he doubles back to snatch up some hardtack dropped by a fallen soldier. Everything in the story gathers towards the moment when he's about to enter the dark and silent wood full of the bodies of dead soldiers.

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Title: A Dead Issue
Author: Charles M. Flandrau
This one is written elegantly and incisively, about a man in his early thirties who turns out looking foolish when he returns to teach at his alma mater, Harvard. Even though he's at least a decade older than most of them, he fraternizes with the undergraduates at the club he used to belong to when he was a student; at the same time, he feels isolated from people closer to his own age.

The story brilliantly shows his need to be liked and to belong somewhere, and how he has trouble leaving the security of that old club and its easy associations. Maybe he recalls with nostalgia the friendship of his own classmates, bonds of fellowship that he thought would stay with him and support him throughout his life; he thinks he can recreate those bonds with a younger generation. Because he hasn't moved on, he risks compromising his principles as a teacher to be chummy with the students. They're young and self-centered and carefree, and they show him an easygoing friendliness that doesn't mean much. How will the main character find his place in life as he grows older, with his face still turned towards the past?

Week in Seven Words #163

dotted
Getting speckled with snow as I take a long walk.

embitter
As everyone is celebrating, I taste the undercurrents in the room. Along with genuine warmth, there's a strong flavor of condescension and cynicism. People are smirking instead of smiling.

gloomy
People in shambles in a green-carpeted parlor.

openness
The conversation goes much better than I expected it would. More listening, calmness, and humor than I would have imagined possible. Acceptance is still a long way off, and maybe it will never come. Regardless, I have to do as I see fit.

potentate
My opinion of him (which isn't definitive, not least because I'm acting as an armchair psychologist), is that he's deeply self-absorbed. Occasionally he turns away from his work or personal interests and notices someone else. He might even be moved to do a kindness for them. Then he'll forget about them and become irritated and puzzled when they contact him.

stimulant
Jolted out of a quiet Friday afternoon by some really good news.

threshold
We stand outside talking in the damp. Occasionally the front door opens, disclosing golden light and a roar of voices.

Week in Seven Words #155 and #156

Week in Seven Words #155

cat's cradle
The dog criss-crosses her leash around and through my legs.

contrasts
The weather, in a way, is perfect: a cloudy cold day, not too cold, the air fresh and scented with herbs and flowers. Because the garden is only half-alive, a sunny day might have made it seem burned out and dead. But the winter mist brings out every hint of color in the broken twigs and grey-green leaves.

disparity
Neighborhoods laid down side by side: slums and fast food joints giving way to gabled homes with chocolate trim.

espied
The bench, sheltered in the gazebo, overlooks the garden, the pale river, and the clouds.

expectations
Maps fire the imagination. This one has names like 'conifer slope' and 'aquatic garden' that sound intriguing but turn out to be a sodden hill and a fountain that isn't active in the winter.

likenesses
Cacti of all kinds: some look like rosettes on a cake, others like cold sorbet fuzzy with ice, others like balls of electricity.

surfacing
I like when the subway climbs out into the light and rattles alongside rooftops and billboards.

Week in Seven Words #156
blasted
A cold wind that seems to scrape out the inside of your skull.

dredge
Gristly duck and faded decor in a restaurant that was once great.

propionibacteria
In a span of five blocks we see something like 10-15 people in Elmo costumes. One of them has terrible body odor, so no one stands next to him.

pulverulent
A dusting of snow on the curbs and benches.

remuneration
Making money off my writing gives me a really good feeling.

spooked
When the ghosts start swarming out of sewer vents and subway stations, the dog yaps at the TV.

therapeutic
Through her dolls she tries to cope with her anxiety about broken bones and reassure herself of a speedy recovery.

Week in Seven Words #145

gauze
Fat snowflakes swimming past my eyes. The world is wrapped up in snow.

macabre
Despair is always waiting with open arms but I don't look his way, not this time.

masonry
In the subway car I'm just one brick in a wall of solid flesh.

morphed
The dog got a haircut. Now when she stretches up on her hind legs to poke her nose over the edge of the table she looks part-canine, part-rodent, and part-pixie, with liquid alien eyes.

pointless
Conversations with people who have a gleam in their eye that tells me they're not really hearing me out, just waiting to pounce on what they expect to hear. Why should I talk, when they already know what I'm going to say?

simulation
Before reading comes pretend reading, where she turns the pages, recites the words she knows by heart, points out the pictures, and to all appearances looks as if she's reading.

wobbly
I'm heading into new territory on unsteady legs, as if there's ice under my feet.

Three disturbing stories for Halloween (or any other time you wish to be disturbed)

Title: The Damned Thing
Author: Ambrose Bierce
Where I read it: Fifty Great American Short Stories (ed. Milton Crane)

A creepy little horror piece about a man living alone in the wilderness being stalked by something he can't see. The story begins with the coroner examining his body, so you know how it ends for him. All he's left behind as a clue is his journal, where he describes day by day, with growing dread, the thing stalking him. I first read this story years ago and still remembered some of the details. It gets lodged in your brain like a splinter.

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Title: Silent Snow, Secret Snow
Author: Conrad Aiken
Where I read it: Fifty Great American Short Stories (ed. Milton Crane)

If I tell you that this is a terrifying story about snow, you might think it's something like a Jack London story with people getting trapped in log cabins in the dead of winter and eating the frozen remains of their friends. But the snow here exists only in the mind of the protagonist, Paul - it's like a static hissing, building up slowly between himself and the rest of the world.

What makes the story so disturbing isn't only that Paul's life is dimming around him, but that he welcomes it; he craves the secret oblivion of the snow and wants the rest of the world to disappear. Is he going insane? Rejecting outer reality for something inward and alien to others? Maybe. That he's the son of typical middle class parents in Anytown, USA heightens the eeriness (there's a Twilight Zone feel to the story). I love how the author takes what could have been an absurd premise and makes it frightening:

The hiss was now becoming a roar - the whole world was a vast moving screen of snow - but even now it said peace, it said remoteness, it said cold, it said sleep.

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Title: The Tell-Tale Heart
Author: Edgar Allan Poe
Where I read it: The Oxford Book of American Short Stories (ed. Joyce Carol Oates)

"And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses?"

When it comes to deranged narrators, no one beats Edgar Allan Poe. This one isn't the elegant, depraved madman of The Cask of Amontillado, who lures his victim into the catacombs for an elaborate premeditated demise. The narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart is holding onto his sanity by a thread. His actions are clumsy and sad. When the police arrive he tries so hard to seem sane (I love how, even though everything takes place from his POV, we can guess what the officers are thinking as they listen to him try to make polite chit-chat in the room where he's buried the body). As in The Cask of Amontillado, this narrator has us stand alongside him and witness his crime; he wants us to understand him. But he also has a conscience, which surfaces through the madness.

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Other stories in Fifty Great American Short Stories include: The Blue-Winged Teal (by Wallace Stegner) and The National Pastime (by John Cheever); along with The Girls in their Summer Dresses (by Irwin Shaw) and A New England Nun (by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman).

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Other stories in The Oxford Book of American Short Stories include: The Middle Years (by Henry James) and Sweat (by Zora Neale Hurston).

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This post is shared at the The Short Story Initiative at Simple Clockwork.

Week in Seven Words #103

bibliophilic
The takeout sushi and blaring battery-powered car have distracted him for long enough. He crawls to the bookcase in the corner of the room and uses a shelf to pull himself up and stand before it. We think it's wonderful that he's interested in books at his tender preliterate age, and when he starts to scratch the spines of the books, up and down, it looks like he's trying to break through them to get to the good stuff inside. One of his older siblings tells us that he likes scratching them because of the funny sounds they make, a raspy choir of book spines; we shouldn't start calling him a scholar yet. But maybe that's how a kid starts loving books, because of the weird sounds and sensations, the look and feel of them.

concealing
Snow coming down like curtains around the world.

inspired
He tells me what he needs for inspiration. It isn't the recreation room with its tables full of old folks bent over pieces of paper. It isn't the ballet playing on the large T.V. in the corner, though he watches it from time to time with a far-off look in his eye, Romeo locked in dance with Juliet to the music of Prokofiev. What he needs is a room with a piano and sunlight and peaceful solitude.

phlebotomy
I stare out the window and pretend that the lab technician is not currently rooting around in the crook of my elbow trying to coax blood out of my vein.

propel
Blow up a balloon and pinch the end shut between your fingers. Then tape it to a straw. Slip the straw onto a wire or long piece of string, and tie the wire/string between two chairs or the walls of a room. Release the balloon. As the air flows out, the balloon-straw contraption rockets forward. Most of the time. Sometimes the balloon makes a horrible whining noise and deflates in agony without moving.

reconstructive
On Martin Luther King Day there's a sing-a-long at the nursing home. The pianist and singer, who isn't much younger than the residents, grew up in the segregated South. The audience, mostly wheelchair-bound and living in different states of lucidity and coherence, were a part of that era too; it's likely that there are civil rights protesters and activists among them, and people who went to hear King speak. Some of them remember, and for others this is a pleasant interlude of songs unconnected to anything past or future. But often they know the words; the words and melodies and sentiments of old beloved songs stay with them even when other things crumble.

subterrane
People expect cutesyness from young kids. They want to imagine that a first or second grader for instance doesn't have any serious fears or frighteningly complicated thoughts. Probably because as adults we often can't handle those kinds of thoughts well ourselves, and we hope that children won't demand more of us than the regular pat reassurances.

Week in Seven Words #56

bidirectional
There is a link between the ability to remember the past and the ability to imagine the future. People who struggle to recall their past with any clarity or detail also tend to have difficulty envisioning fleshed out future scenarios.

coating
Fresh snow in a garbage can conceals all waste.

perfunctory
His eyes dart to the clock or stare past my shoulder at the wall; you're done existing for me now, they seem to say.

reassertion
Raw knuckles and the dust of snow on rooftops. It's cold again.

silliness
At dinner after a long day the conversation is full of welcome nonsense.

spotless
Seven years ago, at age 53, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. He's physically fit, still jogs on familiar paths around his home, his cheeks flushed and his complexion healthy. You need to keep moving, he says, or else you die. There are many things he can't do anymore without guidance and supervision, like making a cup of tea or even setting the table for dinner, but his wife keeps pushing him to do as much as he can for himself - she says she's not going to let him go so quickly. He pauses at the dining room wall, thinks a photo of his son is himself at that age. His wife corrects him. Outside, resting after his run, he says you have to keep going and not think about the future. He can't think about the past either. Lost and optimistic, he jogs on clean beautiful paths in the countryside.

synaptic
I prepare several topics to cover and questions to ask, but there's only so much you can plan when teaching. When it goes well, when you and the students are alive to each other and interested in the discussion, fresh connections form between facts that seemed unrelated, new ideas emerge to be refined or torn down, and everyone sings a little with a spark of inspiration.

Week in Seven Words #55

anterograde
He was a man with anterograde amnesia - he could encode no new episodic memories. He had some past memories to anchor him a little, give him a sense of identity. Otherwise he was adrift. He inhabited narrow parcels of time, probably no more than half a minute long (and often less), whatever his short term memory could hold. He did not remember people he had just met, or what he had just been saying or doing, or what others said and did to him. Every morning when he woke up he felt as if he was awakening after a long sleep, years-long. He would lean over to a diary at his bedside and write that he was finally awake. Then he would discover a previous entry documenting the same thing (that he had finally woken up!) and with a feeling of uneasy dismissal he would cross out that previous entry, thinking it impossible that he could have written such a thing. Most of his life felt like that - the recent seconds slipping, and then a sensation of waking up fresh to the world, not remembering why he was sitting on the couch (his couch?) or why there was a dinner plate in front of him.

floe
Less than two weeks ago the field was caked from end to end in snow and ice, brilliant in the sunshine, with a couple of benches bobbing around like rowboats on an arctic sea. This week the snow has crept away, uncovering dry brown grass. Boys and girls in sweatshirts, tee-shirts, and shorts rush out to play frisbee. Nearby some guys play volleyball barefoot on a sandy court; their big golden dog dashes around their bare legs.

halting
The words come with difficulty, over the phone or face-to-face, but once I find them and say them some relief comes to me; things haven't turned out badly or as awkwardly as I feared. I can even laugh.

observer
Several times this week I watch myself from a somewhat detached vantage point within my mind, like a master observing the workings of an automaton that she ostensibly controls. There I am speaking to one group of people, then to another, and there I am walking, one foot before the other, and listening patiently, and being in turn observed by others. And in response to a lot of what I see I think, "why"?

penmanship
Bad hand-writing makes for a sort of malleable identity. What's meant to be a 'G' looks like an 'S'; a lowercase i is more like a lowercase o. One person no longer exists on the roster, and several have wriggled out of order, out to explore new alphabetical territory.

venture
Diagrams on a board; illustrations dotted out on yellow notepad paper. We map out another attempt at overcoming a difficult problem.

zephyr
For the first time in months I sit outside on a bench and read. I don't get much reading done; the breeze tempts me to distraction.

Week in Seven Words #53

buffer
Conversation becomes a refuge from stress and a stream of relentless demands.

gelid
The sidewalk is frozen over, though I don't know this until I skate forward several inches. Keeping a bewildered balance, I reach out for the railing that fronts the houses on the street. I hold on and skate along, my good winter boots dancing beneath me. From across the street a man in a yellow coat stands perfectly still and watches.

rating
Children are used to receiving gold stars and scoldings and many other kinds of feedback, and when they get the opportunity to reward or scold others they're usually happy to do so. One child has a carefully calibrated rating system: "That one was good. That one was all right. This one is medium. This other one is medium ok. That one is medium good. That one was badly done, a bad job."

shelter
At the school, there's the smell of wood, carpet, and dust, warm armchairs and coats thawing. The narrow hallways are lined with old class photos and sloppy cheerful kindergarten artwork. Upstairs is the library with the window seats and rocking chairs, the sturdy illustrated books propped up on shelves.

snickering
At a lecture a man and woman sit in the back, snickering and smirking and raising exaggerated eyebrows at each other when the speaker makes a significant point. Why don't they ask a question instead, openly challenge the speaker rather than conduct themselves with a sort of weaselly contempt?

tapping
I leave him by the elevator, where he's tapping at the button, tapping tapping... why isn't it coming? He says nothing, just hits the button over and over, as if he's not sure he communicated his intentions clearly the first time.

trundle
The bus trundles down slippery streets, past old cramped houses that shiver under the snow. Inside the bus is warm, and it rocks the passengers back and forth.

Week in Seven Words #52

ambuscade
I feel a little unwell at the beginning of the week, but it passes, and I let down my guard. As it turns out, the microscopic fiends that made a scouting mission through my innards have retreated only to regroup, bring in reinforcements, and launch a surprise attack.

bracing
The outside world is crunchy. The streets crackle with ice, the snow on the curb crumbles to a fine powder on the sidewalk. The air has a clean healthy bite to it.

moment
When I get to the room, no one is there. I'm glad I decide to stay. Had I chosen to leave right then and there, instead of bobbing around by the door in a state of indetermination, I would have missed out on an interesting hour of learning.

pomaceous
Apple juice, plain and sweet, waiting in a glass bottle at the bottom of the grocery bag.

stilts
I'm running a fever and need to walk across the room. My head is somewhere near the ceiling, and I'm not sure if my feet are touching the ground.

stupor
T.V. is suddenly interesting. My patience for commercials seems limitless. Look at that shiny clean pan, that washer and dryer set, that lovely meteorologist swooping around in front of a map with low frozen numbers on it. As long as I don't have to peel myself off the couch and fall back into bed I'm good. Just let me stay here for a while.

sustaining
I'm so thankful she's here. She makes a weak tea that I can keep down. She goes out into the slippery unplowed world to get some necessities from the convenience store. She tells me I'm certifiably insane for thinking that I can go to class in my condition. She makes excellent plain white rice and chicken broth. When I'm at my lowest point she's there.

Week in Seven Words #50

conflagration
It takes me a few seconds to register that the sky is full of smoke, a great expanding cloud that thins out with distance, mixing into the mild peach sunset. As I get closer, I see large flames several blocks away, trembling insanely, tall as a house. Later on the news gets out - an apartment building destroyed in a five-alarm fire, thankfully no one killed or hurt. There are however over a hundred people who lost their homes.

imparted
The first time I arrive at the building complex, someone walks me through the corridors, shows me how they're interconnected and which staircases I should use to get to the third floor. The next day as I arrive, someone asks me for directions, and it's my turn to be the helpful guide.

reticent
She wishes I would confide in her more, but there are reasons I don't. I tell her little things, here and there, some offerings of opinion and thought, occasionally a deep feeling, but nothing that would make me too vulnerable.

roughhew
He doesn't seem comfortable with public speaking. This is hardly his first time in front of a crowd, and he does just fine, but there's only so much of himself that he can master - he can't help the flushed cheeks, the hands that tremble slightly, the voice that stops and starts.

slurry
Gray brown slush, messing over everything, as if the sidewalk has spit up and forgotten to pat its mouth clean.

tenacity
I don't want to be resigned, to walk a rut because that's the most comfortable way. I say this not because I'm one hundred percent certain I won't betray myself, only because I hope I won't, and I'll work hard not to. There are things I can't compromise on and give up on, not without a sense of crushing sadness.

tracery
I love how the trees are outlined by snow, a crisp network of branches. Each bare limb is traced in white, sharp and elegant.