My favorite things in the world are words. Words strung together harmoniously. Words placed piecemeal in an uneven hiccup of a sentence. Words in English that sound like foreign words if you don't know how to pronounce them. Like when I say "poim" instead of poem. Or words in French that I don't understand because I'm awful at French. But I know I like how they sound.
That's what happens first - the affront of the sound. The sound spoken or repeated in my head as I read it on the page. Sometimes it stops with the sound. Just an "ah" reaction. But usually there is meaning in the word, especially when it sits next to another word and I can feel the chemistry between the two. For example, the word "woods" - I see the presence of shrubbery and small creatures digging holes and collecting nuts. Then I read Virginia Woolf - "which rise in twilight in woods." I'm not going to tell you what rises in twilight. I don't have to. The words, those six words I just gave you, are enough.
When I was in high school, my mother told me that I have a very active fantasy life. Frowning, I informed her that my delusions keep me going, so couldn't she let me have them? She laughed, loving the self-deprecating hypothetical situations I create to make up for my absence of real situations or crises - i.e. dates, parties, driving more than 20 minutes from home. I think my relationship with words contributes to my fantasy life. After reading so many words, I eventually start speaking them. I'm talk, not action. I think and think, but the doing only follows 40 percent of the time.
My mother, all wisdom and words in her own English-major, law-school way, told me other things that I have kept with me. Not beautiful words that sound good and inspire me to create a piece of art in their honor, but words that I'm pretty sure are true. "Do as I say, not as I do," precedes a questionable action. "Beware the grand gesture," warns of too-charming males. And even after 19 years of words, I still don't know how to reconcile her two pieces of advice. Words are my favorite things. Yet I do not trust them. Do I listen? Or do I watch?
You know the dilemma I'm talking about. You face it every day. You have relationships with the people around you and they are word or action relationships. Word relationship: Your best friend promises that she will come to your ballet performance. You have her word, she says. But she doesn't show.
No, I'm not a ballerina. But I have friends who say one thing and do another. I find myself saying one thing and doing another. "Beauty is truth" is a quote I've seen or read backward or taken the wrong way. When I corrupt my own idea of beauty by simply telling a lie, I'm lost. Are words still OK if there's nothing behind them?
Action relationship: A guy you always dance with, walk home with, pull into your room ... touches your hand to initiate the above events. But then one night, he looks you in the eye, says, "Let's go," but keeps his hands to himself. Where does one place the importance in that exchange - on the words or the action? Which one is more powerful - which one really conveys our true feelings?
Just do it. My sister tells me sometimes to just stop talking already and do it. "Stop complaining about that paper and just write it. Stop talking about him and just approach him. Stop analyzing your gait and just run."
I don't think my sister has as many credentials as my mother, but her advice can hit a nerve. That pure feeling that I can't actually describe with my favorite things is what pushes me through the day, my week and, you know - life.
People talk more than they do. They read and think and write and speak words about things that may or may not happen. An action is a fact. There's no denying my limbs moving and my hair flipping and my hands waving. I vaguely remember making a promise the other day. The recipient of said promise informed me that words are cheap. I don't know what I'm going to do but I'm pretty sure I'll start with shutting up.
Connelly's column runs weekly Thursdays. She can be reached at c.hardaway@cavalierdaily.com.
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