Word a Day

Sequester

To withdraw into seclusion, remove, set apart or segregate.

I like to have Sunday mornings all to myself. Coffee or tea on the bay window seat, scrying out over the sea and the outer islands, maybe some yoga, maybe the NY Times, definitely some New Dimensions radio. http://www.newdimensions.org/
Uninterrupted time to do whatever I want, or not.

Most anyone who knows me well knows this, and accepts this about me. Sunday morning may be the only time I have completely to myself all week. So I get a text last night, after I have already politely thanked her for the invitation but declined a Sunday brunch, saying “another time”. (There are times I will say yes, but not today…) I ignored it. I don’t like to repeat myself, and certainly will not re-text myself. I get another text this morning. And a phone call. Then, a knock on the door. I happened to be in the tub. I was not about to leave the comfort of it and the delightful iridescence of sparkly bubbles to greet someone so determined to invade my space and to get her own way. So, then, she stands there outside my door, and calls me on the phone, AGAIN. I love her, but this is who she is sometimes. I don’t give in to that aspect of her personality, which irritates her no end and causes her to levy accusations of not feeling “connected” to me when I am unavailable to her. I am there for her when it matters, and often at other times for things like brunch and hanging out, but today it was only about brunch and her insistence that I be present because she wanted my company. Well, today I need only to be present for myself, thank you, and in my world that is OK. What is not OK is stalking me all damn morning once I have said no. Will I talk with her about how this makes me feel? Like I said, I don’t like to have to repeat myself. And it probably won’t make any difference in her behavior….She is the kind of needy that sometimes isn’t capable of looking outside itself; her need often defines her at this point in her life. It’s like an insatiable parasite. If we met as adults, I would not be attracted to friendship with her. I’d still like her, and think she had many other wonderful qualities, but I’d not invest in close friendship. But we have known each other a long time…. this past winter I told her that I loved her and valued her, but that I am not always capable of giving her what she needs, which is to be constantly emotionally available to her. I mean for Gods sake, who IS capable of that all the time with the people in their lives who isn’t a saint? I would say that I am more empathetic than most, and I am a very good listener and capable of being there for anyone I love in whatever capacity they need me, but not ALL the time, and certainly not to the point of being depleted of my life force. If she accuses me of being unavailable, which I am today, and have a right to be, I accuse her of emotional vampirism. I won’t have it. No matter how much I love someone. I told her that this past winter too. That I am not going to enable her or allow myself to be sucked dry by her need when I need what I have for myself. That’s just the way it is. I don’t feel that that makes me a bad friend. I think that it makes me an honest one.

If I want to sequester myself and be only available to myself on Sunday mornings, that’s my prerogative.

End of rant.
LOL

Idioglossia and/or Glossalalia
“Imperfect articulation, utterance of meaningless vocal sounds, secret speech or language that is unintelligible, of no known language origin.”

Twins often use this when they are first learning to talk.

I have just been listening to Dead Can Dance. The singer, Lisa Gerrard almost always sings(?) in this manner, that is to say she makes vocalizations, sometimes in known languages, more often than not in sounds she just makes up as the spirit of the groove moves her. What I find intriguing about that is the beauty of what issues forth as her art. It’s beautiful, moving music, whether or not she is articulating anything at all. You get to just FEEL it without words with known and associated meanings filtering through your consciousness as part of the listening experience. It’s almost primal, yet sounds so very ethereal.

I wonder if she was a twin?

Gematria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria

“He continued his exegesis, Diotallevi salivating at those numerological delicacies. Pure gematria.”

(fr. Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum)

Photo, gematria table, Greek, Hebrew

Segue and Loquacious

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/segue
http://thesaurus.com/browse/loquacious

My Mother is the Best Mother in the Known Universe. She is quite delightful; funny, kind, loving, open hearted. I am glad, every day, that she got to be mine. However, she does not conform to standard or conventional rules with regard to conversation. For example, she is mind bogglingly LOQUACIOUS and she does not SEGUE her way smoothly or fluidly from topic to topic within conversations. In fact, she does not segue. She talks over people, she interrupts people, and often makes comments that… unless you are related to her, or a friend, and familiar with the way she thinks… appear to make no sense. This confuses some people, but because she is gracious and kind and funny, and still a looker, she gets away with it. We were out walking today. She talks non-stop like a wide eyed toddler “Talktalktalktalkchatterchatterchatterchatterlalalalalalala…..” Annnnnnnd, repeat. Her head is astoundingly busy, monkey mind, and the contents thereof issue forth like outbound trains that are quick to derail. I usually can’t keep up. She moves from one topic to another before some trains of thought are finished. Or, she picks up threads of her own thoughts from days ago and interjects them into a conversation, sans segue, only to have people give her that look, the one that says “Huh? What does that have to do with…...” and then she just moves on, lickety split, before anyone has time to make the connections to the next train of thought. This can be charming to a point. Everybody loves her. But it’s also exhausting. I said to her, out of an earnest curiosity to know “Mom, is it ever exhausting to be you?” and she looked at me sweetly and quizzically, and said “Huh? What? What do you mean?” and carries on: “So,then, talktalktalkchatterchatterchatterlalalala…..” and proceeded to bump into a German tourist as she spread her arms to describe something, ‘cause she also isn’t that aware of the personal space zones of others. But I won’t go there. I ADORE her. Truly.

But I NEED SEGUES. I know I am not going to get them with her. But I like them.

I love her more, obviously. But damn. Sigh. I like me some conversational segues.

The End.

“Wordcatcher”.

One of my favorite words: Numinous.

An excerpt from Wordcatcher:

Numinous

Conveying divine power. A mystical word revived in our time by German scholar Rudolph Otto, from the Latin numen, a divine power or spirit that brings life or guidance; a hint of the spirits that dwell in nature and one aspect of it’s original and transcendent meaning of a “nod” of the gods. Numen refers to the spirits or geniuses that dwell in a place and have the potential to inspire creative efforts and numinous refers to the sacred essence, the supernatural dimension, magical forces, in dramatic contrast to phenomena that can be apprehended by the senses. Numinous refers to the otherwise inexplicable power emanating from a megalithic site in Brittany, or a painting of a storm at sea by Turner, that reveals a presence in nature and that touches a presence in us. Figuratively speaking, Emily Dickinson’s home in Amherst or the temples of Bali may be said to be numinous if they fire our imagination. In one of my favorite books, The Star Thrower (EDIT by Bee, that’s a wonderful book!) anthropologist Loren Eiseley evokes the numinous without ever actually using the word: “As we passed under a streetlamp I noticed beside my own shadow, another great leaping grotesquerie that had an uncanny suggestion of the frog world about it…....Judging from the shadow it was soaring higher and more gaily than myself. ‘Very well,” you will say, ‘Why didn’t you turn around. That would be the scientific thing to do.’ But let me tell you it is not done, not on an empty road at midnight.” That’s presence, that’s numinous.

Huh.

I posted something here a day or two ago….....and it isn’t here….scratches head….I thought I hit “save this entry”....huh…..it’s a mystery. I’ll have to come back to it and repost.