Week in Seven Words #582

This covers the week of 3/14/21 - 3/20/21.

branching

Brown, crunchy, bristling paths, a clear view of buildings through bare trees.

decompress

Her relaxation: Diet Dr Pepper, feet on ottoman, British period drama.

desktop

His desk: cigarette burns, a ball made out of rubber bands, a lamp with an oversized bulb that gets too hot too quickly.

impending

Sometimes it feels like we're on the deck of the Titanic, the music playing as the water rises.

older

Wiser in some ways, more bewildered in others.

protective

The water has been drained from the basin, and a girl slides inside to explore the mud-encrusted bottom. Her dog barks frantically from a nearby bench. It's restrained and can't keep her in sight. It can't protect her from whatever awaits her in the mud and the smashed leaves.

unknitted

Tense muscles seem to break apart slightly in the steam.

Week in Seven Words #543

This covers the week of 6/14/20 - 6/20/20.

badgering

The ducklings snap at dragonflies.

cheep

The perpetual cheeping of two chicks, one of them cupped in the careful hands of a preschooler.

distortion

I share one of my fears with them. Spoken aloud, it sounds ridiculous, overblown. There's a small chance of it becoming real, but I've taken those small odds and distorted them in my mental house of mirrors.

guarded
Fewer shops are boarded up, but Times Square is still barricaded. We stop to drink water near a couple of stone lions. They're guarding a library that admits no visitors now.

rerouted

A distraught older woman tries to squeeze past a police barricade. Her doctor's office is on this street, and she has an appointment. The police don't let her pass. They give her convoluted directions for getting into the building from another street.

summery

He looks like a poster for California tourism. Wearing swim shorts, a Hawaiian t-shirt, and reflective shades, he's sprawled out on a pool float shaped like an ice cream cone.

uncovered

We've walked past this part of the park multiple times, and it's only now that we spot a small memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto. The heart of the memorial is a plaque flat on the ground.

Week in Seven Words #537

This covers the week of 5/3/20 - 5/9/20.

blocked

On our walk, we head to an art museum in the hopes of seeing into it from the outside. From what I remember, it has some large windows. We find them shuttered.

converging

Multiple sources of stress converge into a tension headache.

permute

Our walks are limited to a relatively small radius, so we're getting inventive about places to visit, new combinations of paths to take.

ripping

A rending wind pushes us down the street. It sends up a swirl of litter. The tulips are half bald, the cherry blossoms cast to the ground.

springtime

Clean air and the colors of tulips and azaleas. One path is pink with fallen cherry blossoms, a lush carpet that will soon get trampled into the mud.

unreadable

The large turtle is very still, as if it's one with the rock formation on which it's sunning. The stillness of the moment breaks with the noise of an airplane. It's writing something across the crisp blue sky, but the letters are too blurry to read.

zeroing

Police hand out citations to people who aren't wearing masks.

Week in Seven Words #530

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

forage

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

hurrying

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

insecurity

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

mixed

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

peacefully

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

unstick

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

uptick

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

Week in Seven Words #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 #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 #130

compensatory
In the absence of music, I hum more.

cyborg
He's a lean, mean furniture-moving machine, hefting tables, chairs and a futon without pausing for breath. Sort of like the Terminator, but instead of hailing from a post-apocalyptic future he works for a group that accepts donated furniture. He has no visible emotional expression but cheers us up considerably.

inspiration
The day is long and hot, and the moving van is filling up with bags, boxes and bins. The experience is worthy of a song parody, and he gets started on one during his nth elevator trip.

jetsam
The accumulated clutter was symbolic of baggage I needed (and still need) to get rid of.

shambles
It's happened again. Their relationship has gone down in flames.

shredding
I feel like an industrious rodent, hunched over tearing paper apart with my busy paws.

slotted
The shirts are all on the shelves in rippling textures and rainbow colors.

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.

Week in Seven Words #112

dramatic
A small group of tourists stands at the curbside and shouts at a squirrel to get off the road. "Watch out! Cars are coming!" It reminds me of people who yell at the screen during a horror movie ("Run, run! No, not upstairs!"). At last the squirrel does turn around and head back onto the grass instead of trying to cross the street. The tourists cheer. I don't know how much credit they give themselves for the squirrel's self-preserving choice.

grating
Sitting on a sunlit patio while waiting for the bus, I hear an eardrum-busting excuse for music coming from a loud speaker by a restaurant. It sounds as if someone had roared and slobbered into a microphone and recorded it for posterity.

grinding
The subway scrapes along the tracks, setting people's teeth on edge.

inked
Digital fingerprinting doesn't work for me for the most part, so I have to get it done the old inky way, as part of a background check for a potential job. When I'm done I'm tempted to finger paint on the yellow-gray walls.

kinetosis
When the bus is out on the freeway I can read. But when it hits traffic or starts to lurch through the city I have to close my eyes to stave off motion sickness.

radiate
As she talks about her troubles over the phone I stare at a patch of sunlight by the lake. I want to bring us both into that light, so we can stand together in it and be warm.

stealthy
As the geese sun themselves obliviously on the rock, the ducks sneak past them and go for the breadcrumbs.

Week in Seven Words #94

anew
With new determination I open up a Microsoft Word document that's been untouched for months, and I begin again.

concinnity
At the concert we sit closest to the violists and bass players. This way we're more aware of all the layers in the music, its rich harmonies, and the one moment where the lead bass player strikes a note out of tune. We're happy to hear all of it.

density
They sit around a table in the cafeteria pouring liquids of different densities into tall plastic containers - corn syrup, dish washing soap, vegetable oil, water, alcohol - and mostly they don't care about the bigger picture, only that it's fun to look at the liquid layers and see if their friends have made a mess. But from time to time they'll connect what they're doing to chemistry and to the properties of the world, before returning to the really important questions: will something spill? Or blow up?

interlude
On two different subway trips, a musical duo sing in Spanish and strum on guitars as they stroll from car to car.

low-key
The mild cold I come down with helps me mellow out a little.

origination
One school I visit reminds of a nest with birds huddled close beside a clutch of eggs. Another school reminds me of an airport terminal where litter blows across the clean bare floors.

ursine
At bedtime their parents slip out of the room for a short while to unwind, and I read them a story, then another one: The Berenstain Bears in their treehouse with the pink-trimmed windows poking out of the upper leaves. Brother and Sister Bear learn that if they watch too much TV or fight all day, they'll miss out on life.

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 #81

glare
A flash of lightning fills up the window like an enraged eye peering into the room.

justification
It's the same situation with the same actors, but I describe it quite differently depending on the person I'm talking to.

manifest
Before leaving the library I drop my backpack on the sofa by the exit and start to rearrange its contents. That's when I see him wave hello from the other end of the room. He comes over, we talk, and the tightness in my chest eases. Sometimes a friend is there at the exact right moment, just when you need friendship most but don't hope for it or think to ask.

parabolic
The shape of the past few years resembles in some ways an inverted parabola, arcing up and then declining.

phrenic
Until the decision is made, it's difficult to breathe.

slops
The writing is ragged with indecision. A sluggish paragraph is cut through by a flash of insight all in capslocks, followed by a puddle of diluted thoughts that trickle off in ellipses.

treading
I look like I'm getting somewhere, typing and rifling through papers, but it's only an illusion of progress. Over time I grow tired and start to sink.

Week in Seven Words #78

cascade
I could be a cartoon - a wide-eyed foolish girl in a canoe paddling towards a waterfall. I know it's there, right ahead. I can hear it, I can feel the impending descent in my bones, but I think that if I brace myself in my seat and hold the oar a little tighter I'll glide over the edge gracefully. Maybe the best I can hope for at this point is to make it amusing - the canoe shoots out, hangs in the air; I smile, look down, say "uh oh" in a goofy voice, and plummet. Laughter will help me crawl out of the wreckage later.

eupnea
Stepping out into a cool morning that promises rain, I walk slowly and focus on breathing.

excitable
The yolks sizzle and crisp in the pan. Cheese bubbles, and the salsa spits red and green.

lounging
Stunned by the heat of the afternoon, I sprawl on my bed with a book and read by the light that beats in through the blinds.

metamorphosis
The large owlish sunglasses change her face so much that only the fact that she's staring in my direction and smiling makes me stop walking and take a closer look.

overextend
For everything I do I wonder if I could be doing something better, more worthwhile. I'm so caught up in 'what-ifs' that I get little done.

vitiligo
The remaining roses are a pale brittle pink, as if they have a skin condition.

Week in Seven Words #75

ataraxy
We find a rose garden and a magnolia garden facing each other across a quiet street. Both are past their season. Both are mostly empty. A breeze shimmers through them.

coda
Fireworks rumbling at the day's end.

disclosure
I share as much of the truth as I can bring myself to without distressing them unduly.

loll
It's a happy lazy day, when the sun pounds through my head; I play Scrabble, fight off sleepiness, and read out loud from a chapter book about a pig in search of hot buttered toast.

municipal
They take me on a tour through their slowly growing Lego town. In the pizza parlor a Lego lady is firing up some pies.

sheen
Chocolates wrapped in slick foil of different colors: orange, ocean blue, silver, gold, and fir green.

trammeled
We glimpse The Thinker through a sprawl of planks and chain-link fencing. He's hemmed in.

Week in Seven Words #73

arisen
One of the best ways to be woken up early is by a phone call from someone who missed hearing your voice.

atypical
An inflatable bouncing castle has been set up outside of a bar, where the happy hour crowd is deep in mixed drinks and beer. People jump around inside the castle while on the sidewalk two entertainers dressed up as Nemo the clownfish and Elmo throw down some dance moves to hip-hop.

lampyridae
My mind feels like a firefly in a jar this afternoon, glowing, tapping against the glass.

soliloquy
In a bricked-off courtyard with bare metal chairs and tables, a fountain gurgles, staving off the silence.

sonority
When the trolley groans to a halt it makes a noise like a desert horn unearthed from sand and sounded for the first time in centuries.

surveillance
The squirrel sits up on the deserted porch, a peanut sticking out of its mouth as it monitors the sidewalk.

uncorked
A timely phone call and conversation, where he reminds me not to keep things bottled up. A couple of days later he emails me a reminder that I can tape up to the wall above my desk.

Week in Seven Words #70

abounding
The wind skims water off the fountain. The droplets prickle on our skin. I'm happy to be with family on this fine sunny day.

cherished
He tries to detach my arm from my body; as I play along, falling over in the booth, he laughs. Later on as he sits on his father's shoulders, he leans over for a kiss on the cheek and tells me he loves me.

exploration
We make a water wheel turn, manipulate mirrors, watch a black hole emerge from a supernova. Dinosaurs lean towards us for a closer look as we peer at them through 3D specs. We clamber inside a giant heart, climb to the top of a lighthouse, and escape from a bottomless gift shop.

lamina
In the early morning the trees on my block toss their leaf-shadow onto the brick walls.

mélange
At the miniature golf course in Franklin Square the kids are innovating with the sport. They swing their putters at the ball (golf), kick the ball around (soccer), and dunk the ball into the hole (basketball). When basketsoccergolf fails to divert, there's enough water around to plonk the balls into (scuba diving). The golf course also gives them a mini-tour of Philadelphia; major landmarks appear in small scale. At one hole you have to hit the ball through the crack in the Liberty Bell. At another you have to whack it up a steep hill and into one of three possible tunnels in the Art Museum. The kids like dropping the balls into tunnels and seeing where they'll next emerge.

sunscreen
The soothing redolence of sunscreen - I think of sunshine, water, long walks, powder blue skies.

unbuttoned
He knows I don't like to talk about my problems. That's why, after my initial denials, he keeps asking questions - not intrusively, but just enough to let me understand that he cares and wants to know enough to offer advice. I start to sketch things out for him - a little bit in the cab ride, a lot more on the walk home along the streets baking and the bridge flashing in the sun. Nothing's solved yet, but I do feel a little better by the end of our conversation.

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.

Week in Seven Words #65

alleviation
I'm relieved to step into my apartment at the end of the day, shut the door behind me and shut out the world for a little while.

brew
I appreciate her kindness when she offers me a cup of tea. I sip at it as I wait outside, listening to the rise and fall of voices.

caged
I stalk around from one place to another - a corner of the cafe, a public computer, an armchair at the library - as if any one of those spots will contain an escape hatch.

clump
We tend to clump together at every meal, the comfortable bunch of us.

fizzing
Fat bumblebees have emerged in full force, rocketing out of rhododendrons, evergreen shrubs and porch eaves.

peppered
The last day of the holiday we go for a walk. Sticky blossoms shower down on our heads; we pick them out of our hair and off our shoulders.

staggering
I know what the outcome will be, even before I hear it pronounced. I spend the rest of the day frustrated and exhausted, trying to sketch out the bright side to myself and half-succeeding. Good can come out of this. I just wish I'd known what to do early on; it would have saved me time, energy, and this sinking sensation that I still won't get it right.

Week in Seven Words #63

accretion
Words are deposited like sediment on the page, pebbles and boulders and fine silt.

click
When I find myself slowing down on the keys, not typing with the speed and spirit I need, I watch a few minutes of Eleanor Powell tap-dancing – her brilliance, rapidity, rhythm, innovation, and ever-present smile get my fingers moving.

fan
Papers and books fan out from my desk, like trees flattened by the impact of an asteroid.

husk
Single-minded and unsocial, most of my thoughts caught up in work.

irritants
At the library they unpack their lunches from rustling brown bags. From each rustling brown bag they produce rattling bags of chips and sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil. They crunch on the chips while peeling away the aluminum foil and taking long slurps from bottles of neon-colored liquid. They whisper loudly and wetly at each other. Their chairs squeak.

rehashing
It seems like when we meet we discuss the same things over and over. They don't make any more sense the third time around than they did the second and first.

trim
In preparation for Passover, she helps me tidy and vacuum, stock up on food, tweak the books and papers into piles.

Week in Seven Words #62

affable
The daffodils bob their heads in courtly greeting.

buoyant
A tree on the plaza is alive with blossoms, a foamy pink haze. The next day I see a juggler and young children beneath the blossoms; the sun is bright on the petals and the white stones underfoot.

churning
How will I get everything done?

contented
It's very good to see them. They behave in familiar comfortable ways, and my place feels more cozy.

jotters
At the start of the meal I'm not sure what we'll talk about, but about ten minutes in we're surprised to discover that we both write. When we talk about it we sound like two people who have both vacationed to the same wonderful place and are now recounting all its delights and plotting our next trip back.

rapid
His words come out in a tumble about gifts, toys, cupcakes, volcanos.

terrarium
It's a sky-blue and pink-blossom day outside, and I'm watching it through a set of thick windows.