Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Words have been very present in my thoughts lately, both spoken and written words. Over the years there have been numerous times when I have opened my mouth, words have jumbled out, and I immediately wished I could pull them back in. This is impossible. Perhaps the habit held by so many these days to begin any sentence with “I mean” is related to this fear of possibly needing to clarify even before the words are released. Being understood is a treasure; being misunderstood can be painful.

Wordless communication is beautiful; the eyes convey a depth of meaning impossible to reach with spoken words. But I also do crave conversation that is at times rich and thoughtful and other times playful. I even crave the hard conversations that lead to pruning which leads to new growth. For this to happen, eye contact and mutual trust is essential. Joy emerges in the presence of this level of relationship.

…what they had to say communicated itself best in the blessed silence of their release and isolation.

Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

At times during this past year I have experienced the beauty of shared silence at level deeper than I could have imagined. It is true that silence can feel awkward, but in a relationship of trust, the communication that occurs with the eyes, with touch and through quality of presence transcends words. Anyone who knows me knows that I believe in the beauty of words, both written as well as spoken. I sometimes crave the voice of one I love. In those times, though, when spoken words seem awkward or unnecessary, I am still richly content.

Where words are restrained, the eyes often talk a great deal.

—Samuel Richardson

Telling someone about what a symbol means is like telling someone how music should make them feel.

Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

The same is true of a poem, song lyrics, an editorial, a painting, a sculpture, a novel, spoken words of a conversation. I would contend that each in this representative list could be deemed a symbol or collection of symbols on a certain level. Each represents its creator’s attempt to communicate meaning to some audience. At times, the audience is the self—and even then the meaning or feeling evoked can shift over time.

I work daily in the realm of the symbols of music in teaching young musicians to decode them. Some days the enigma they feel in their early attempts is palpable. The sounds as well as the feels are rustic—but rustic is its own kind of beautiful. The shift from the basic learning of the meaning of the symbols to how they should make a musician feel and then to how the musician may then connect those sounds to the emotions and feelings of life and communicate in the process of decoding is often mysterious but also very beautiful.

Stuff your eyes with wonder. … See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

It is good to renew one’s wonder…

Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

This may be my shortest blog post ever. It is a reminder to myself to stop occasionally to feed my eyes and to appreciate the smallest wonders in my world.

Once I might have wished for that: never to grow old. But now I know that to stay young always is also not to change. And that is what life’s all about—changes going on every minute, and you never know when something begins where it’s going to take you.

—Joan W. Blos, A Gathering of Days

I rarely write about passages from books I’ve not read, but this one is just right for a season of much change in my life. Plus, its truth is undeniable. One of the best ways I have found to make sense of changes happening in my world is to write, but I have not been intentional about my journaling for the past several years. This blog has been an extension of my journal writing as it has been a platform to connect my thoughts to passages from my reading. To reestablish my practice of journal and essay writing, I am choosing to write a short post each day for the next 30 days. Here I go! (Well, I didn’t do the 30 days!)

     And yet, even as he thought of all these things, he noticed somehow that the sky was a lovely shade of blue and that one cloud had the shape of a sailing ship. The tips of the trees held pale, young buds and the leaves were a rich deep green. Outside the window, there was so much to see, and hear, and touch—walks to take, hills to climb, caterpillars to watch as they strolled through the garden. There were voices to hear and conversations to listen to in wonder, and the special smell of each day.

—Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

This passage from the next to last page in the book, at least that’s where it’s found in my edition, has been coming to my mind a lot in the past few days. At this point in the story, Milo has returned to his bedroom from his incredible adventure and is feeling lonesome for the characters he shared the adventure with and feels eager to rejoin them for another trip. The tollbooth and car have been taken away though, by someone whose signature is blurred, for other boys and girls who need to be shown the way, to have their senses and awareness opened.

Milo begins to see his familiar surroundings with a whole new perspective compared to the one he at the beginning of the story. He sees new in the midst of old. I don’t think this delivers the message (at least it doesn’t deliver it to me) that what is is always what should be. In other words, I believe that sometimes we do need to change that which surrounds us rather than artificially molding our view of it — whatever that may mean. Opening our eyes and all our senses and looking through our own window with open senses can renew our perspective for what is beautiful in our world as well as what needs to change. Knowing the difference can be very tough because all is skewed by the lens and filter embedded within us, shaped by the total of our life experiences. When our eyes are open to what is truly beautiful, maybe we can then find the courage to be true to our own heart and change what is not.

illustration by Jules Feiffer

Aside: I wonder of Norton Juster and Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables, were friends in another time. Anne: “Isn’t it splendid there are so many things to like in this world?” Another truth from Anne, this one from Anne of Windy Poplars: “One can always find something lovely to look at or listen to….”