I am a writer. I am supposed to be a logophile: to adore
each word, how it lies itself down on the page, nestles itself in, as companion
to phrases.sentences.stanzas or paragraphs.pages.tomes. And I do; I am, to some extent.
But I also really feel how words are symbols, pointers
toward something…how all of language is symbolic. And therefore, not the thing
itself. Not at all the actual experience.
I see where words fail.
Maps are not the breathing, fluid landscape.
A memoir is not the whole lived experience of flesh and
bones.
The calendar is not a season. Nor is the clock, time.
A definition of compassion is not the act of loving.
Memory is not the event.
The religious icon is not the spiritual practice.
Et cetera.
Living deeply rooted and impervious to symbolism (that is,
reluctant to cozy up to words or maps or definitions or laws or principles or
thoughts or …) is the oneblinkinwhich pure engagement
occurs before thought or story or reaction. For me, any one of these:
• the blackberry perfume carried in hot puffs that sprinkle a
sweet longing into my being • the hard-edged breath that begins with
a gurgle and ends with a prayer • a wave. a smile. a stroke of pet fur. silence
• thorns
and burs piercing flesh • saltwater trail down her cheek • the drought.parched, lazy z-shaped,
tan&browngrasswoven, pebble.mosaiced creek bed • the fleeting and profound
instant of ecstasy at accomplishment’s arrival • the birth of an insight • the
pulsing fire in my knee • the low tan building surrounded by redwoods that for
an unthinking moment was the god.conversion of my youth • sinewy muscle stretch
• the deafness to all else when wind envelops head at speed •
And everything I just wrote between the bullets is not the
experience either…words used to convey wordless moments, words used to tell
what words cannot possibly understand. (on the bicycle, at the bedside of the
dying one, stepping on spines, an aching body part, being again for an instant
that ten year old at Bible camp upon sighting the old dorms along the edge of
the highway) These are gifts of Life in the form of insight.feeling.reverie.bliss.devotion impossible
to capture via lógos.
Symbols help point us along the path and offer us a means
for conveying all the blessed riches that are ours as living beings. Words
included. But before colloquy or text, there is the raw experience; embrace that moment.
All blog images created &/or photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2014 JenniferJWilhoit/TEALarbor stories. AllRightsReserved."
