Language

“We open our mouths and out flow words whose ancestries we do not even know. We are walking lexicons. In a single sentence of idle chatter we preserve Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norse: we carry a museum inside our heads, each day we commemorate peoples of whom we have never heard. Penelope Lively, an English fiction writer.

(https://www.writerswrite.co.za/literary-birthday-17-march-penelope-lively/)

• “Vanish into thin air” …
• “There’s a method to my madness” …
• “Wild-goose chase” …
• “The green eyed-monster” …
• “Break the ice” …
• “Wear my heart upon my sleeve” …
• “Swagger”

(https://www.businessinsider.com/everyday-phrases-shakespeare-made-up-2016-3)

So the ballplayer, Fernando Tatis has swagger. One thing ingratiating about him is that he, occasionally, wears his heart on his sleeve. Shakespeare’s English was the first of Modern English and look at how much it has changed. Walketh not upon early Modern English unless you want to be misunderstood even worse than you are now.

Ah, the museum of which Ms. Lively speaks. Before Shakespeare, the Norman conquest of the 11^th Century brought lots of French into the English language. Long before that the Mesopotamians had the first cuneiform written language, an advancement beyond the pictograms of earlier times. (https://sites.utexas.edu/dsb/tokens/the-evolution-of-writing/#:~:text=The%20cuneiform%20script%2C%20created%20in,to%20its%20earliest%20prehistoric%20origin.)

That written language provided for the kind of written record needed for government/civilization through to our present era. It sure helps.

Language is really fascinating stuff, even to the point of noting regional dialects all over the world in the same language, changing over time. Language is a wonderful, wonderful tool for those who find much peace in the writing process. Hope that’s your writing experience and it’s not a “green eyed monster.”

1977

Pilgrim on a Long, Long Journey

A few years after my brief, first marriage ended in divorce, I met my spouse of over 40 years in Baltimore. She was an art student at the Maryland Institute College of Art. It was the spring of 1977. I met her parents on our second date. I took her to dinner several times. She certainly grew on me steadily.

In the midst of that relationship I traveled alone to Washington, D.C. I looked up a distinguished, well-known attorney who I was told was a relative in Washington. He described to me the tragedy of having recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

He was only 60 years old. I was 32. He explained to me the difficulties with his ten-year old son as a result of his memory loss. It was a distressing conversation.

I told him how serious I was about Kristine, how special she was to me, how…

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Traveling Together

Pilgrim on a Long, Long Journey

So it was deja vu as I waited for an outgoing flight to see our grandsons in the summer of 2019 . I sat in the waiting room and using both my plug and USB I tried to keep my android droiding. No matter how many electrical, chair outlets I plugged none of them would charge my phone. This had happened months ago as well. By the time I reached the 34th chair outlet my spouse gave me an interesting look. I gathered she was trying to decide which poison in 3.4 oz. containers she would inject into my lunch on the plane.

She was a little gnarly already. Her 3.5 oz. container of flawless moisturizer was absconded. It was .1 oz. over the limit per a TSA Agent with her thumb on the scale. She beamed as she explained that to my unsuspecting spouse.

I am here to testify my…

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