"One must be drenched in words
literally soaked in them
to have the right ones
form themselves into the proper pattern
at the right time."
~ Hart Crane
I'm all for a good soaking. Throw me under the shower. Fill up the bath. Hose me down. Or leave me out in the rain. I'll be the one running barefoot under the crying skies.
Give me a book. Give me a blog. Give me a magazine, a quote, a song and poem and I will show you one wet through happy girl. And please oh please bring me a cup of tea with a dash of dictionary and a thesaurus to snuggle up to and I will be yours forever.
What ever you do, don't take the words. That's how the last Ice Age really happened. They didn't tell you that in school did they! But I know. I am Tab after all :)
What about you? What are you doing to soak in words?
Lovely post, as always. I can't help but soak in words. I read. I write. I am.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes was Time Enough to Last about a bank teller who always sneaks away to read and one day survives an atomic bomb by having been reading in a vault. After his initial horror he discovers that the library survived and he is in heaven, picking all the books he will read. And then. He accidently smashes his glasses. The end voice-over says something about he wanted nothing but time and now he's in the Twilight Zone.
As a lover of words that story has stuck to me for years.
Another wonderful story about words is Pearl North's dystopian novel Libyrinth where one group of people safekeeps books and another seeks them out to destroy.
I love the opening line: "The wind howled and the flames roared, but the books, as they died, merely fell silent."
So my wish for all of us is that the words do not fall silent, that we sing them free.
I love the thought of soaking in words! Read, read, read, and write, write, write. Drenched and quenched. :)
ReplyDeleteIts has been storming words,
ReplyDeletedeluge,
then drizzles,
drops like pearls staring through the faint sunlight,......
we clothe the nakedness of our silences with words just as we undo our clothes with words to touch the skin of silence again!
As for me i'd like to soak you with words of love...for love is what you give, and love is what you are!
ah yes, let us soak in the words and dance with the words and drown in the words till we are too utterly bruised with inkstains and the scent of paper to distinguish ourself from fiction. that must be the true path to becoming a writer. :)
ReplyDeleteYour blog never fails to inspire, I simply adore you for contributing to it so faithfully each day. I wish I had the same beautiful commitment as you. ♥
much love,
Sarah
xxx
Gosh I love those photo's you post each day Tab! And your words, I love soaking in those :D
ReplyDeleteEvery night, I go to sleep with an audio book playing. I start it a chapter or two further along each night, however many I listened to before I went to sleep, until I'm done. It plays on a loop, so if I fall asleep during the last chapter, the entire book starts playing over while I'm asleep. I think, that in the end, I've heard the books a dozen times in my subconscious. That's gotta help the words sink in!
I soak in the words by reading and writing and talking to myself inside my head...as in "How should I describe the bunch of pine cones drooping from the top of the swaying tree?" I talk about it in my head until the words come.
ReplyDeleteToday, I'm writing ;-) Happy Thanksgiving! I'm visiting from over at Angie's blog-- thought I'd say hello! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting Colby. Happy thanks giving to you too.
ReplyDeleteLiza- I love that, I do it too.
Wendy, thank you :) I think I need some audio books....
Sarah, beautiful words as always. I cannot imagine you even know a time where you did not soak in words. :)
COL- you are always so sweet. Thank you.
Deb, love how you put that.
Tricia, oh wow, love those quotes! Thanks for sharing.
I am so with you here. I sometimes think I'm a writer just in case I ever run out of things to read. Just the right word in just the right place has the power to make me smile all day long.
ReplyDeleteWow! I was thinking exactly the same thing as Tricia, your first commenter! That very Twilight Zone episode flashed through my mind. Great minds do think alike. lol. Just the other night I was laying in bed, reading a novel and my husband said, "You blogged and worked on your book all day long, and now you're reading? Don't you ever get tired of words?" "No, I guess I don't," I replied. "Ever."
ReplyDeleteDeb, the right word in the right place has the power to make me wet my pants :)
ReplyDeleteElizabeth- no I don't either. :) Glad there are others like us out there. :))
I douse my skin in rhyme, drown myself with anything that will harvest my mind with metaphor. Books, magazines, poetry, crossword puzzles, Scrabble. These are the seeds to creativity. When I'm not writing I'm escaping into someone else's illusion. I wish I could find the biggest dictionary housing all the words of the world. There are times I feel my cup is empty and words elude. But I sit back and realize they are everywhere.
ReplyDeleteHi! I guess I'll fess up right away. I followed your comment at Elizabeth Bradley's blog to get here because your blue butterfly keeps catching my eye! I recently read a novel called "Still Alice" by Lisa Genova, and the cover has almost that same blue butterfly on it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway...
Soaked in words, I love it! I have been soaked in words all my life. My father had floor to ceiling book shelves installed in two rooms of the house I grew up in, and there were numerous other book cases as well. A little like growing up in the library!
Words are crucial to me, as the clearly are for you. Visit my Word Garden, if you like. In any case, your blog is lovely. I'm so glad I wandered in...thanks, little butterfly!
Thanks for the visit Fireblossom. I am glad my butterfly is seen out and about :) Thanks for your kind words.
ReplyDeleteI read that novel by Lisa Genova and LOVED it. And yeah the butterfly is nearly the same. For me the butterfly is about hope. :)
I LOVE that quote!
ReplyDeleteI'm so excited you're joining our on-line circle! Welcome!
I love the idea of soaking in the words. It sounds like a marvelous way to spend the day.
ReplyDeleteHelen
Straight From Hel
I always enjoy your posts. :) I'm reading and absorbing, too.
ReplyDeleteWhen I couldn't fall asleep when I was little, I'd fall asleep to talk radio. Now I like falling asleep to audiobooks. I just listen to words and not sentences.
ReplyDelete