That Thing We All Have in Common
I was thinking about language the other morning. A friend and colleague, Emelie Hill Dittmer, wrote to tell me her book, Skriv för att läka - En guide i reflekterande skrivande, (Writing to Heal - A Guide to Reflective Writing) was launched mid-October last year. Emelie interviewed me a few years ago for the book and I was honored to be invited to make a small contribution. In her email, she offered to send a copy of the book to me, “although it is in Swedish!”
In my response to Emelie, I mentioned to her that my book, A Writer’s Book of Days, had been translated into Korean, and Wild Women, Wild Voices into French. I wrote, I like knowing my words have reached someone in ways I could have never done in my native language. What we all have in common is language and even though our languages differ, our need to communicate is the same. I said I liked having those books together on my bookshelf; your Swedish and my English and the Korean and the French will mingle and who knows what might arise.
That wasn’t my first thought about language that morning. I'd picked up my reserved a copy of Amy Leach’s new book, The Everybody Ensemble—Donkeys, Essays, and Other Pandemoniums, at the Library the day before. I had been eagerly awaiting this book since I read of its publication. Leach’s first book, Things That Are, was on my top five list of books read last year. Her essays are a linguistic delight; they’re funny, quirky, lyrical, poetic, and open-hearted. In the title essay of her new book, she invites all the creatures of the world to join together and raise our voices in song. We humans are included, and no more or no less, than any of the other voices indigenous to Earth. “Humans,” she says, “please turn your guns into kazoos.”
Amy Leach’s book is just one of the books that accompanies my morning coffee and journal writing ritual. A friend who knows me well gave me a copy of John Koenig’s, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, and oh my goodness! is this one a delight. To quote from its back cover copy, the book “…defines new words for emotions that we all feel but don’t have the language to express.” One of my favorites is “ameneurosis n. the half-forlorn, half-escapist ache of a train whistle howling in the distance.” And then the word's origins: “From amen “so be it” + neurosis, an anxious state + amanuensis, an assistant who helps transcribe newly composed music.” Ever since I heard Paul Simon’s song, “Train in the Distance,” I have recognized this emotion; I’m glad to have a word for it now.
These books, and so many others, remind me that our need to communicate, to give voice to our feelings, our wonderings, our amazement, our pain and sorrow, our joy and our love—all this is vital to every living creature—“even” as Amy Leach writes, “single-celled constituents of slime mold.” In these times of continued uncertainty (when have we ever been certain of anything?), let us all use our words, raise our voices, sing our many and varied songs, write our stories, read the stories of others. And let us listen as well.