October 27, 2008
No Words


The two women who are most important to me both just went through nasty break-ups, within 24 hours of each other. This followed a week when, within my immediate circle, a friend’s friend died suddenly at 28; a wildfire threatened a home, a beloved parent had emergency surgery and was diagnosed with cancer; a beloved cat was killed.

It has been, I think a can say , a Hell of a couple of weeks. And yet, in all this maelstorm of misfortune, I have no words — there is nothing I can usefully say. Because my relationship with these women is not in any way physical, words are all I have to offer comfort and there are none, none that have the capacity to help.

This is odd to me. Words still can — and often do — hurt. They get thrown around carelessly, stupidly, ignorantly; verbal caltrops with which we litter our relationships. Less viciously, we damn with faint praise or gush over trivialities; larding our speech with superlatives until it becomes at best the mere noise of uninformed admiration; at worst a sacchrine flood that dilutes all meaning. As a result, when we really need to comfort, it seems they have no weight; they cannot pierce that miserable armor; they have been all spent on banalities and we have nothing left to say.

I do not think it was always this way; I think that once upon a time people believed in the power of words to heal, not just hurt. I think that somewhere in the ever increasing particularization of our society, that capacity was lost; I think that in the herd where so few bother to listen, all need to shout and we conduct ourselves always at the top of our range, so when true tragdy strikes we have no reserve on which to draw.

Or perhaps I am merely feeling a bit ovewhelmed. But in either case, I am now, when it matters, speechless and impotent. And I must say that I do not like it much.


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