Words

It's strange how we give the value that we do to words. I mean, here they are on the page, or pixels on the screen, or these peculiar intagibles that are no more than a combination of vibrations transmitted through the air. Yet they change us, alter us, stop us in our tracks. We fear or desire these peculiar intangibles; sometimes we treat them like mountains to conquer, precious treasures, or adventures for our minds. Odd that we fear them, though. As if words were sirens, we avoid them when we think we may be led astray. As if we didn't have the option to turn the page, or put the book down, or click to a different web page. Sometimes I think we fear we might learn some dark truth from words and the illusion will disappear, only to be replaced by someone else's dank and clammy reality. So we choose words carefully, like we would tomatoes at the supermarket, or girlfriends and cars.

When I was a child I remember what was perhaps my first thought. My parents were arguing, and my father was saying something to my mother. I watched as the words emerged from him and hung in the room for a moment, and I saw her change. She seemed to diminish, crumple, and I watched as water came from her eyes. I couldn't understand how one person making certain sounds with his mouth and chest could make water come from another person's eyes. The words, these magical non-things, changed this person! I suppose I was still "pre-verbal" at the time, and my young mind was able to recognise words not so much for what they said, but what they could do. I guess I was impressed, in a kind of damaged-at-the-same-time way.

Later my father would use words far more sparingly with all of us. One time, he didn't talk to me for three months. Not a word, yet we shared the same house. Later still, we didn't speak for seventeen years.

When my girlfriend was raped, I couldn't speak at all. Couldn't say the word "rape". It wouldn't come out. Couldn't say "angry", either. There was a time when I was like the Chief in "Cuckoo's nest". Remember him? He said nothing for years, then out popped "Juicy Fruit", as if time hadn't stood still at all.

Stange we need words. I wonder if there are universal words, like cats and birds seem to have. Is that what "speaking in tongues" is, I wonder? Is it the universal human language of the soul?

Sometimes I think I'd like to learn to speak in tongues.

Or do I mean "remember"?