10.25.08
What if our love…
What if our love never went away?
What if it’s lost behind words we could never find?
-Daughtry (What About Now)
I really like the song “What About Now” by Daughtry. Actually, the entire album, Daughtry, has songs with great lyrics. They’re so poetic and romantic. I was in the car earlier today when this song came on the radio. I’ve listened to it a bunch of times before, but today was the first time I really heard these two lines. I kept repeating them over and over to myself and thought that they were interesting.
I love words, of course, but to think that we can lose things (and especially something as significant as love) because of the words we don’t say (or find things because of words we do say) is a pretty powerful idea. It makes me wonder about all the things we don’t know or have because some words don’t translate from one language to another, or we never had the chance to share our words, or we just don’t know which words to use. It makes me think about how the different words that we each know shape our lives. Powerful, powerful.
I also really love the pure, pleading, vulnerability of these lines. I tried to search a little to see who wrote the song lyrics, but didn’t find anything yet. If anyone knows who wrote them, let me know!
~Melissa 
09.21.08
“Remember there’s no such thing…”
“Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.”
- Scott Adams
Random Act of Kindness and Gratitude #5 – This act is something that my mother does, but I only recently learned about. Many people clip coupons, but not all of us do. There is a lot of money that can be saved using coupons, but it is a time consuming process of sorting through them and cutting them out, (or finding them online and printing them out) keeping them organized and then remembering to use them when you are in the store. My mother is actually quite good at it. She collects coupons each week to take to the grocery store with her and has gotten the system down to a science. Since most coupons have an expiration date, that also has to be accounted for in the process because sometimes the coupon is not needed to be used before it expires.
What my mother does if she has a coupon that is not yet expired, but probably will expire before the next time she goes shopping, is find the item in the store and leave the still good coupon on top of it. For example, if she has a coupon for peanut butter, but does not need to buy it herself, she finds the peanut butter that matches the coupon, and puts the coupon on the item so that someone who is coming to buy the peanut butter will find the coupon and be able to benefit from it!
Apparently she has been doing this for a while, but I only just learned about it. It doesn’t take very long to do, but it may help out someone else and give them a pleasant surprise while they are doing their grocery shopping. I was so proud when I learned about my mother doing this random act of kindness that I wanted to share it and suggest it to all of you.
Again, this idea is an easy idea that requires no money and very little effort. We can do things like this in any (clothing, home improvement, pharmacy, etc.) store that sends out or offers a coupon. Before you throw away a coupon that you don’t need, stop and see if you can leave it for someone else to use.
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On a similar note, today’s Word of the Day from dictionary.com was beneficence. So, feelings of kindness and charity are already in the air…
Happy Sunday. ~Melissa
08.30.08
Let me count the ways…
adoration, affection, appreciation, ardor, attachment, besottedness, bliss, care, cheerfulness, compassion, concern, contentment, delight, desire, devotion, doting, ecstasy, elation, endearment, enchantment, euphoria, exhilaration, felicity, fondness, friendship, glee, happiness, idolization, intimacy, joy, jubilation, keenness, lightheartedness, love, merriment, passion, penchant, predilection, rapture, regard, satisfaction, tenderness, triumph, warmth, worship…
~Melissa
08.25.08
Aestival
Aestival – “Of or belonging to the summer.” Isn’t that a delightful word for such a sentiment?
I learned this word courtesy of Dictionary.com’s Word of the Day emails…it came just a few days ago and I thought it was appropriate to post here since the summer is winding down. The summer is a special time for a lot of us, (though I am aware that not everyone gets to take as much vacation as teachers do). But, summer in this area means things do move a little slower, believe it or not! We take trips to the Jersey shore, have campfires and picnics, go to outside concerts and plays in the park, and there are lots and lots of carnivals with really great carnival food! My birthday is in August and I have always felt a special connection with the summer because of that as well – especially because when I was growing up, I hardly knew anyone else who had a birthday in the summer; I felt like the summer belonged to me in that sense. It is nice to know that there is a word to describe that very feeling!
Any special thoughts or memories about the summer? Post a comment and share!
~Melissa
08.13.08
Sometimes there are just no words…
Sometimes, there are just no words that seem to fit. The more you try to find the right word, the harder it becomes. In cases like these, there is not much you can do, but let it be. The wrong words only make things worse.
abandoned, anguished, at a loss, at sea, baffled, bemused, bewildered, blah, blue, broken-hearted, bummed (out), cast down, chagrined, choked, clueless, crestfallen, crushed, cut up, dejected, deserted, depressed, desolate, despairing, despondent, devastated, discombobulated, disconcerted, disconsolate, discontented, discouraged, disenchanted, disillusioned, disgruntled, disheartened, dismal, dismayed, disoriented, dispirited, displeased, dissatisfied, distressed, doleful, down, down in/at the mouth, down in the dumps, downhearted, downcast, dumbfounded, fazed, flummoxed, forlorn, forsaken, friendless, frustrated, gloomy, glum, grief-stricken, grieving, heartbroken, heavy-hearted, inconsolable, injured, isolated, let down, lonely, melancholy, miffed, miserable, mortified, mournful, muddled, mystified, nonplussed, offended, pained, peeved, perplexed, puzzled, sad, saddened, shattered, solitary, sore, sorrowful, taken aback, tearful, upset, woebegone, wretched…
~Melissa
08.10.08
Kismet
Kismet- Any word that pertains to destiny or fate is simply beautiful to me because of its very essence. I am a strong believer in destiny. I believe that all things do happen for a reason, though it isn’t always obvious what that reason may be at the time. Appreciating that the relationships, experiences, and situations of our individual lives are all parts of our own story, our own destiny, makes the joyful and wonderful aspects that much more significant and meaningful. How our stories intertwine with those around us is magical and when we believe in kismet, every day is an adventure. Anything disheartening, or disappointing that happens along the way really doesn’t seem to matter so much when we consider that it is all part of our story; it is all necessary.
The word kismet is not used as often (or at least I don’t come across it as much) as its synonyms. I wonder why that is so. I really like the sound of the word. Even though in the pronunciation, the “s” sounds like a “z”, the beginning three letters, “kis” reminds me of the word “kiss” and makes it a much more romantic word than even “destiny.” It isn’t as poetic-sounding as “serendipity,” but since it is of Turkish and Arabic origin, it does feel a bit exotic. I will keep my eyes and ears open and try to see which instances, and in what context I find the word.
~Melissa
08.04.08
Brackish
Brackish – Nicholas Sparks uses this word a lot. I think it appears at least once in each of his first several novels. And, I love that it does! When I first read it in The Notebook, I fell in love with it right away. It is used to describe water that is slightly salty, which can be a mixture of salt water and fresh water. (It can also be used to describe things as unpleasant or distasteful, but I have never come across it used this way, and I hope I don’t any time soon because it may just ruin the word for me!)
To me, something brackish has been softened or muted, but is not entirely changed or completely diluted…I’d like to use the word in this sense in writing applications other than describing water. Perhaps the best way will be to compare something to brackish water, or is that the easy way out? I wonder if the usage of the word to describe something unpleasant is more common than I realize and if using it how I would like will even work at all. Maybe brackish might be effective in describing someone’s attitude or disposition. I think I will try it and see if it works.
~Melissa
08.03.08
Unenviable
Unenviable – This word made its way into my notebook when a co-worker used it during a workshop to describe his interpretation of the role of special education teachers at the middle school level. He had said that special education teachers had the “unenviable position of having to be experts at everything.”
He was referring to the need for special education teachers to understand and be able to accommodate and modify for all types of learning disabilities and styles, as well as having to expertly know the curriculum for all the content areas at the middle school level. This comment sparked a pretty lively discussion during the workshop, but the word that stood out the most through all of it was unenviable.
This colleague could have used several other words such as unfortunate, unlucky, undesirable, or unpleasant, instead, but by choosing to say unenviable, there was a strong connotation that he was acknowledging and respecting the responsibilities rather than simply dismissing them as undesirable. It was as if he was able to say that he had thought about and evaluated the responsibilities that the special education teachers had, compared them to his own, tried to imagine what it would be like to be in a special education teacher’s place, then decided that it must not be easy, and expressed his understanding – all with this one word.
I also really like the way unenviable sounds when it is spoken. I think it has to do with the repeated “n” sound followed by the “v” sound and possibly because it is five syllables. ~Melissa
New Category – “Words”
There are some words that as we read them, or hear them in conversation, they stand out brightly among all of the others. It could be for any number of reasons including the way the actual letters form the word, how it sounds when it is spoken, its meaning, its origin, or its obscurity.
I have many favorite words and come across new favorites constantly. I typically carry a notebook with me at all times to record my own thoughts as well as any other ideas that I find interesting during the day and I keep word lists in the back of these notebooks. It is the best place for the words because when I am sitting down to write and am stuck for a place to start or need inspiration to find the perfect word, it is easy to flip to the back section of a notebook and find a custom made, meaningful list of great words.
I am going to start a new category of posts here on the blog where each post is dedicated to an individual word. I hope that if a word strikes you, that you will submit a comment. Please also feel free to email me with any words that you particularly like. ~ Melissa melissa.morris11@gmail.com
