on words

i find little else quite as powerful and settling (& unsettling at the same time) as words. sometimes the words of little clara, only 3 years old. and sometimes the words of f. scott fitzgerald. sometimes the words of a stranger, and sometimes the words of my mom, the same ones i have heard for the past 25 years. what a treasure. one to have and to hold- whether you hold them on a piece of paper, or a computer screen, or just in the subconscious memory of the brain, recognized only when those familiar patterns of speech cross the air waves and somewhere deep in your reptilian brain, a connection fires.

this is why i write. this is why i read. this is why i listen. a collector of words- my own, and yours, and his, and hers, and theirs. it never gets old.