The unexpected twist of fate
I love words. Discovering new ones. Sounding them out. Finding out where they originally came from. How their meaning evolved over time.
As a kid, I used to spend summer afternoons reading both the dictionary and Roget’s Thesaurus. Yes, truly. I read them…of my own choice. Another one of my Moments of Respite.
It was just fascinating to find so many meanings for one word, and so many words for one meaning. Then there were all the different ways you could alter words — nouns, adjectives, verbs. And best of all, deciphering the code of odd characters for accents, hyphenations, and pronunciations.
As an unexpected twist of fate, that activity served me well later on, as, at one point in my writing career, I was a freelance lexicographer: I helped write and edit a dictionary and a thesaurus. I made sure every possible nuance of meaning, cultural reference, and usage was there for each word, and that every detail of origin and pronunciation was correct. I couldn’t believe I was being paid to “meet words and learn their life stories!”
So it is no surprise that for this memoir, I have a list of “power words.” They are words that prompt deep reflection on my life, Words that evoke strong emotions. Words that best describe the images in my head, and the depths of my spirituality. And they provide abundant “prompts” for my journaling and this book.
And that is just in English.
Behold!
I also have books now on Hebrew words. Their pronunciations and how to write them in both Hebrew and English fonts. Their root origins, the multiple ways they can be interpreted, and… most importantly… how they connect with my soul’s power in using them. When I write them and form the curves and lines with the pen, I FEEL their power. Especially this one:
Hineini (Hee-NAY-nee)
One way to translate it is: “Here I am.” But that is not good enough. There are other Hebrew words that say the same thing with much less power.
In an article by David Bigge, “‘Hineini’ – Answering the Burning Bush,” he noted that part of the power of Hineini is from its root “hinei,” which means “Behold!” He goes on to describe that Hineini is special because it is not just an acknowledgement of where a person is, but it is a bold, brave declaration, a response to a request. I consider it more akin to “Yes! That’s me! I’m right here!”
It was the response Moses gave when the burning bush called out his name. He didn’t just say “Yeah, that’s me,” or give a tentative “Y-e-s?” Instead, he announced with spirit and courage: “Behold! It is I!” Not the kind of response you’d expect if a burning bush in the middle of a desert talks to you. So that demonstrates the courage of Moses.
For me, of all the words I will share below, the one I consider MOST powerful is Hineini because when I felt I was being called to do this book, that was how I answered God.
Being a ritual person, I marked the start of my writing with a visit to a local synagogue for a ritual bath in their “Mikveh” pool. When I got there, I reflected on the unrelenting pull in my gut to do this book.
I floated quietly as I said a few prayers. I took a deep breath and felt someplace deep in my heart literally open, and yield in surrender. And even as I wondered if I would regret “tempting the Universe,” I said to God, very deliberately:
“Hineini – Okay, Lord, I am here. What would you have me do? I will do what you ask.”
And again, as if tempting the Universe once wasn’t enough, when I finished the first part of this book, The Old Country, I did the same Mikveh ritual before starting this section.
And again, I said: “Hineini – Here I am, Lord. I will do what you want.”
No turning back
I don’t know about anyone else. But I am a total control freak. So to completely lower my guard, fully open my heart, and say with total surrender, “I am here, I will do what you want,” to the supreme power of the Universe…THAT is just a little bit intimidating. I half expected the skies to open and bolts of lightning to hit the water. Yet, I knew I could no longer run from facing my pain, reaching for healing, or answering my inner call to do this.
When I finally confront a situation where I realize that the “only way out is through,” and I fully commit to answering a call to do something, that is it for me. That is my word…law…an inviolable vow. And there is no turning back.
In this case, I committed the “supremely irrevocable act” – I said “Yes” to God. And I didn’t just say yes; I INVITED God to take the steering wheel. That was the ultimate “dare” of my life. But as scary as relinquishing that much control is, call me silly, but that is one vow I won’t back out of. I was leaving my “old self” behind, saying “Behold!” and stepping forward to “Who knows what.”
THAT is the power of one single word.
My word lists
As I mentioned above, I have my “power word lists” – two full pages of words that most hit home for this writing. And I could probably come up with more. There are even a few Hebrew and Latin words sprinkled in there.
They are GREAT meditation mantras: Close your eyes. Say the word. Breathe it in and hold it. Feel it. Exhale and see what comes up. Talk about effective writing prompts.
I will comment on just a couple. For the rest, I share them. They will impact everyone differently. But maybe some will speak to a reader and inspire some insights.
To return, AND RE-turn
One Hebrew word I love is “Teshuvah.” It has a few nuanced meanings, and many essays have been written on what the word stands for.
A common one has to do with repenting, such as during the High Holidays. But for my particular journaling that I will share below, it is more about the other two definitions.
One of those involves “turning around” – to stop, turn, and look back; or if you do that over and over again – to “re-turn.”The second is simply to “return.”
To me, Teshuvah IS the work of this book. In one way, like that second meaning, I am returning to all of my past to reclaim the full story, determine understanding, create meaning. So I have to return to things long gone because that is the source of the story.
In that first one, I am “turning around,” again and again, “re-turning,” to listen for my past selves. Instead of avoiding them anymore, I have stopped my forward movement, I have turned around, and I am waiting for them and listening to what they want me to hear.
Re’s and Trans’s and all the rest…
I noticed that a lot of my power words are verbs. Actions. But then the writing should be active because life is active. Hopefully. And each of the words below has deep meaning in my life experiences.
Many fall into the categories of “Re” words, and a few more into the “Trans” words. There are other verbs and verb phrases, as well as nouns. But just two adjective/adverbs.
Here are my lists. They are not in alphabetical order. It helps to have them be sort of random, because then each one hits like a surprise, a word association activity that you react to “in the moment.” That is the best way for me to get the left-brain censor out of the way so my impressions and truth buried within can pop out before that censor interferes:
Reclaim
Redeem
Reassemble
Restory
Reframe
Restore
Resolve
Release
Remember
Reflect
Recover
Reject
Relinquish
Renounce
Reinforce
Reject
Repent
Renewal
Resume
Transform
Transfigure
Transit
Transcend
The mixed bag of other verbs:
Collude
Clarify
Expect
Discover
Demand
Grieve/Mourn
Answer
Metabolize
Choose
Extract
Distill
Understand
Celebrate
Confront
Dismantle
Explore
Heal
Forgive
Dissolve
Surrender
Challenge
Process
Inspire
Question
Wrestle
Seek
Discern
Connect
Preserve
Love
Reach out
Deserve
Feel
Experience
Struggle
Liberate
Embrace
Honor
Establish
Integrate
Interpret
Change
Shift
Internalize
Shed
Perserve
Memorialize
Unburden
Synthesize
Some key verb phrases:
Assign meaning
Live into the answers
Pose the right questions
Enter the darkness
Own it
Name it
Face it
Let it go
Bear witness to
Hold both in your heart
Make visible
Make sense of
Give meaning to
Stay with it
There are nouns to capture “states of being I consider important:
Agency
Catharsis
Metamorphosis
Power
Balance
Middle path
Courage
Honesty
Wisdom
Insights
Ethics
Self-love
Nuance
Admiration
Acceptance
Collusion
Tenacity
Determination
Darkness
Disorientation
Unknown
Focus
And any noun form of the verbs above to describe being in that state of action (Ex. Reflection, Restoration, Inspiration)
Adjectives/Adverbs
I don’t find adjectives or adverbs useful to me for active reflection…with two exceptions. There are two that are powerful enough to be on a list, one that bears the quality of the evil in our house:
Insidious/Insidiously
Complicit
A reflection on Teshuvah
As a last thought, I will share the set of reflections I wrote one fall, triggered by that word, Teshuvah. That one word unleashed a treasure of memories, sensations, and emotions that I had forgotten, and brought me to a decision I needed to make:
Fall: The Turning and Returning
It is almost Yom Kippur…Day of Atonement,
the end of the Days of Awe,
which are often summed up in the word, “Teshuvah.”
It’s a good word, combining the triad: “turning, returning, repentance,”
a “coming home” of sorts.
It comes in the reflective and fading days of the year – Fall –
and is a time that calls us to turn from ordinary busy lives,
return to ourselves to reflect,
and repent.
Then with the end of those days,
we resume the cycle of life and the new year, all over again.
Always, the circle.
I sat on my front porch this afternoon,
feet up, head leaned back, eyes shut,
soaking up whatever muted warmth the late-season, sharp-angled sun offered.
Damp sweet smells of overripe everything in the earth surrounded me
with a fragrance I never tire of.
Yes, it is fall again…my seventh decade of falls.
Suddenly, I am back there —
one of those fall afternoons seven decades ago,
When a different world existed:
of old Slovak immigrants, 3-family houses with extended family upstairs.
When the School day started with Mass
and the halls were patrolled by Nuns in full garb whose presence was revealed to you only by the rustling of those huge rosary beads strapped to their waist.
It was a time yet, when all was magical, and God could do everything.
To look back now, it was “My Little Town” … the one in Simon & Garfunkel’s song,
with the dead and dying taking place right in my own soul.
And something about those reflective days of dwindling daylight at the end of the year
emphasized it even more.
There was a saving grace, though:
scattered slivers of time, like those fall afternoons–
precious moments, late in the afternoon until dusk
that were mine alone.
My moments, before supper, homework…and whatever else might come…
Starting with the exodus from school.
It was early enough in the year that school was still “fresh” and fun.
Yet it was still always a joy to be released from the classroom rigor.
So often I sat in those rooms staring outside at those fall leaves,
dreaming of being a pioneer in those orange-and-rust New England woods, lost in my imagination.
A nun told me in exasperation that Stephen Foster must have written Beautiful Dreamer for me
because I never paid attention.
So, when 2:30 came, we burst out of school, greedily sucking in the fresh air.
It was always the same group of us walking down the hill:
the two brothers – one with Cystic Fibrosis, whom we knew to watch over because he was fragile,
like the time he passed out cold on the ground, hitting his head with a thud;
and his super-loud brother racing down the street screaming for his Mom;
and my sisters, and the neighborhood kids we played whiffle-ball with all summer.
Shuffling through the leaves
I would tune out their laughter and taunts and instead focus on the sidewalk, watching for all the familiar ruts and cracks that I knew like old friends.
I anticipated each as I approached, their locations imprinted in my brain from years of walking that street.
The yard at the top of the hill had the jagged, thin cracks in the pale cement sidewalk.
The yard halfway home had the broken asphalt-and-sand driveway, ruptured by tree roots.
There were the heavily planted yards with their sweet smells of damp earth buried under rotting leaves, bathing my senses with their fragrance.
Chilled air in my nostrils was the reminder that winter’s cold would arrive soon enough,
and left you wondering if the sweltering summer had just been an illusion.
As we walked down the hill, kids peeled off, heading to their respective houses.
During the fall, everyone retreated to their own realities,
unlike summer when we all stayed out late playing baseball under street lights.
At home, the “school shoes” and uniform came off, and the play clothes went on.
Mom was there…making dinner…watching TV…a stable presence we never doubted,
even if she was a somewhat vacant absence in the background of our lives.
Still, I didn’t know any better then,
and these were my moments to savor.
Back outside, the freshness of the cold air smacked away the school-day sluggishness,
and woke the daydreams.
On the surface, I just looked like I was wandering the small yard,
running from the cellar door into the garage to the top of those dark garage stairs
where I crouched, peeking through the wood-slat door of the locked attic.
Then off to crawl beneath arches of overgrown weeds covering the embankment,
tucked behind the garage, near the garbage cans.
Within my mind, though, I was spying on an unseen enemy, heroically tracking and battling warriors,
and journeying to far-off places, past, future, and imagined.
Too soon, though, daylight would disappear,
drowned out by looming shadows
and the other reality inside the house:
dinner, homework…and whatever else was waiting.
That last part depended solely on dad’s work schedule,
whether he was on the day shift that week, or working nights.
I always prayed for the night shift weeks.
Now it is fall again, all these years later.
The house, the tiny yard, the spooky garage, and the weedy embankment are far away.
My days are no longer ruled by his work schedule, or him, thankfully.
Yet even 70+ years later,
he still haunts my psyche, my nightmares, my weekends, and yes, my late fall afternoons.
My body “remembers” the time of day and tenses at the memory of what used to be.
And Mom – she continues to be the vacant absence, now slowly waning in the last days of her life…
her own Autumn.
There is an ache in me that has remained all these years–
her absence.
Time has run out now to ever know that mother’s unconditional love.
And trapped within her battered psyche are the answers to questions I have never been allowed to ask.
Her answers…the treasure trove I have longed for my whole life
are now lost to me forever…and probably to her as well.
It is fall again, the end of another full circle.
The sensory delights still remain,
and I smile at the daydreams and adventures I acted out.
There is something still magical to me about fall
even if life sometimes seems less so.
And God…well, God is no longer able to do everything
But maybe that is better.
It gives us room to breathe, wrestle, discover.
For years, I hated Him….Her…whomever
I finally figured out, though, that God is really in a bad way,
because the maker of all is at our mercy.
Longing to love and heal us, God instead must wait…
for our answers
Answers have been the problem of my life.
Finally, I have accepted that we are the only ones who can provide them.
They are there, waiting to be extracted from the stories of our lives.
For my whole life, I swore there was no point in telling that story.
But now I have learned it is the only point.
Brought to the light of day, fully felt,
that story may allow me to untangle the knots of that house
and finally discover the answers I’ve needed.
Who do I write this story for?
Certainly, for myself.
But also, maybe for God?
Just as I refused to write for me,
for years I also swore I’d write it for no one else.
What would be the reason?
If I had no answers for me,
why would I have any for another?
But in the end, story is the answer to all.
For my answers.
For God, who has been waiting a lifetime to hear my answer
to His request for help with “tikkun olam” – healing the world.
And maybe even for others.
My answers are not theirs.
They have to excavate their own from the story of their lives.
But my journey may encourage another to undertake their own…
and in the process, find their way back to life.
It is Fall, yet again,
a returning for the 70th time.
And finally, God, yes,
you have my answer…
I will help with Tikkun Olam.
Soul Mosaic 
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