In my nearly nineteen years of existence I have come to fall deeply in love with the intricacies, the simplicities, the depth, and the beauty of words.  I survive on them.  I collect them, I organize them, I keep lists of them in my notebooks, and often I rearrange them into patterns that create worlds and stories from the emptiness of a blank page.  My bones are crafted of words, my blood runs with rivers of them, and my tongue tastes their lilting, rolling, rumbling flavors, big words and small words and beautiful words and ugly words, mysterious words and boring words, austere words and ostentatious words, old and new words, some fresh and some slightly used, lost, or brand-new.  I find an inexplicable charm in words.         

I like archaic words that nobody uses anymore, like athenaeum, obfuscate, erstwhile and contumelious.  These words are aged, like fine wine, but forgotten behind the mask of modern terms and a changing world, ones one might find in old books like Shakespeare or Jules Verne.  But I also like normal words we use every day, like cabinet, paperclip, honey, and teapot.      Continue reading “A Gallimaufry of Words” →