On Words

"What cannot be said will get wept"

A wonderful quote by Jim Harrison, author of nothing I've read (True North, Legends of the Fall). Of course, I'd clean it up to read "What cannot be said will be wept," but that is the undeniable editor in me. I love words. Always have. I love to accumulate them, find or argue the meaning of them, find just the right one for what I am trying to express, either in writing or in speech, and to rearrange other people's words. I am not nearly as adept with grammar or construction, but words? Words I understand.

It is galling, isn't it, when you realize that words, the tools you've depended on for clarity and expression, are completely and utterly inadequate. Love or joy or pain or sorrow so great that to put words to it would be an injustice. Joy at the birth of one's own child, or the moment you realize the depth of love you have for someone, or that they have for you; sorrow over the death of a parent/spouse/child, that takes your breath away. Leaves you with tears of ecstasy or agony. The feeling can be one of sweet surrender or powerlessness.

Or is Mr. Harrison describing words that ARE not said rather than CAN'T be said? The opportunities we miss to express our love, hurt, joy, or anger to the person towards whom we feel it. The times we think to ourselves that we will talk about it later, and later never comes. The times we decide it is just too hard, or that we won't be understood anyway... Grudges build that way and grow like cancer. Or, perhaps the person to whom you had so much to say dies. Instead of a grudge, we are left with a pit of regret. And how else to respond to that but with wracking sobs.

In either case, what cannot be said will be wept. It can be taken as a fact or a warning.

r.