#scurf141: Greeting cards, wordy words, jibber jabber
The meaning of these silly things that seem to be holding a lot of me together
Pages after pages of words and voilà we have a novel! Wouldn’t that make a writer? Or, at least, a would be writer?
You have something to write with. You have something to write on. A splash of words on the back of some vacant strips of paper. Littered here and there, these words a patchwork of self-love.
On other days, a bouquet of words you leave at the doorstep of your mother’s WhatsApp chat. That’s what will make your morning complete.
Word after word after another word. A heap of words as an old-school iMessage. Sent by a friend to another, across continents, timezones and selves. Isn’t that what the smallest of joys look like?
A bunch of sweet nothings, clasped together with the right punctuations. You set them up across from a pretty drawing and with a cute typeface — there’s a farewell greeting card.
Some days I just walk into the Archies in my neighbourhood. So much to find hiding inside those cards. The cheer, the sorry, the gloom, the love, the affection, the happiness, the anticipation. The only thing missing is an absence of words. Archies, greeting card stores, stationary stores fill me with an uncanny sense of jubilation. You ask why?
There’s something for everyone who walks in there. The door turns, the bell chimes, the cool of the ac hits your face and you have a galaxy of choices to pick from. Will you say I miss you to your mother? Or will today will be a You’re My Best Friend kinda day? Does the card for your grandmother look too pink? Do you know that your latest crush will like that motorbike card?
Words at their most anodyne.
I agree those cards are vanilla, slightly stereotypical, but there is so much meaning to be found within these sparse words. The strangeness lay in their inert nature, their crispness, their limitlessness You can say so many things with such few words. A thing of magic! A strip of paper putting the most meaningful yet simple words to conjure up the most beautiful of meanings. What’s not there to love!
A sweet three word text to my long distance husband, and he wakes up with a smile. Some emojis, too, I throw in there.
Words are all I have. This is all I can do. Their absence makes me ratty.
How then do I compile something that is deliberate and has to connect and flow and define and sculpt? Something that threatens to be larger than all these words that came before it, that looms, that forebodes and that ultimately grows larger than me?
How do you put words into sentences, then slap those sentences into paragraphs? How then do you find meaning in them? How do you find depth and truth and art in there? How do you let yourself do that?
Meditate, predicate, conflate — you find the way that you think might fit you. Maybe these words will find their own train. Perhaps what’s needed is a little bit of discipline for us wildlings — these words and I.
Something should happen. I feel something stirring. Even this byzantine poem today feels good. A joy circles around my fingernails. These words perfume the notebook I put them in, making me realise that letting myself away from them was probably a mistake.
Maybe this is all that there is to it — this writing will just always be a gathering of words. A congregation that will never grow bigger than itself. No larger context to set itself to, no broader meaning to look for in it. This experience of writing, of joy, and of a galloping wagon of words strewn across piles and piles of diaries, notebooks, notepads, tissue rolls, bills and scraps of paper.
But then again who am I to demand anything more from something that just roots me, grounds me, fulfils me so deeply — even in its most innate, primal sense. I show up on the page and these words appear like obedient lovers. Never ditch. Never falter. I should be grateful for just that, and you know what? For now, I will be.
Tell me if any of this made sense to you?
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