Sometimes I get an email from a friend and it is so luscious and rich that my spirit crawls up inside it and just rests there for a while. The words and images create for me a healing and safety that I don't always know in real life, so I print them off and carry them around in my back pocket for a long time until they become worn through. I once had an email like that from my dad that I carried around for half a year in my back pocket, until it faded and turned the colour of my trousers.
Words have become for me my medicine and my healing touch. They are to me a lifeline and a grace that nothing else can measure up to, so I carry them with me, or I keep them safely inside a box beside my bed.
I used to think this was a recent development of mine, mainly because of my dislike of punctuation and things like nouns and verbs and such. However I recently remembered that there is a box in the house with every card Lauralea ever sent me, and every note ever written, even from before we were dating. Perhaps I am a romantic but more likely I'm just a guy constantly in need of reassuring words written on a page so that I feel safe and loved.
Either way, words have an amazing power all their own for me, and I am grateful that they have such expressive power that they can shift my heart a little to the left or right, to where I need to be.
May I encourage you to write letters of deep expression and love to those you care about. Words can change a life.
That's a great encouragement!
ReplyDeleteWords are not like that for me, but I agree they have real power: power to crush or to heal, to anger or calm, to make lust or desire purity. I still wish I could pull words back sometimes and wish I had let them out at others.
I actually thought I was one of the only people who keep words around. I hang on to some e-mails for the same reason. It can be so encouraging to go back and read them. There are some words that are simply blessings - from friends, from children, from parents. I can understand why you carried your father's letter around in your pocket. I still have letters from my mother written just before she died that came to me after the event and they remind me of all the things I loved about her.
ReplyDeleteI understand a little better now. I live in the moment - the past is behind and the future is to come. Maybe that's why I don't keep words?
ReplyDelete