bedraggled

be*drag*gled

/bi'drag'eld/

adjective

1. Dirty and disheveled

2. Limp and soiled, as if dragged in the mud

3. In deplorable condition

In other words...my soul.

Have you ever been so tired that you feel as if you've been dragged in the mud? That your very limbs are limp as if the puppet master has suddenly snipped your strings? You are not only unkempt, you are unmanned.

The wind has gone out of your sails. The pep is gone from your step.

Whatever cliche you wish to apply, feel free. For these past 3 months...let's be honest, these past 3 years...have proved that cliches are cliches for a reason: they are sometimes true.

I have been tired before. I remember theatre overnights where you work only half as much as you play, and you think you can keep going. That you're getting stronger as the night gets longer. You fall asleep sorting nails, a costume closet becomes the perfect place to rest your head. You cannot possibly be expected to paint one more straight line, because you are seeing double. And you crash on a shitty orange vinyl love seat from 1987 that cannot possibly contain the energy that is seeping from your skin. Only to wake up 2 hours later, stiff backed, bleary eyed, and excited to do it all again.

I once gave an Oral Term Paper for a formidable English teacher and the night before I took a nap. I could not recite one more word of my high school equivalent of a dissertation because suddenly my paper was written in Latin. Or maybe it was Pig-Latin. And I speak neither. I awoke at 7:15pm only to think it was 7:15am and that I was not only unprepared but going to be late. What came next was a melt down of Jessie Spano proportions in my kitchen floor as the relief at my sleep deprived snafu was drowned in my hysteria. I sweat through 2 shirts and a sweater the next day in anticipation of my Modern Lit class, but by the grace of Edward Albee and an army regulated thermos of coffee I made it.

I attended college, where again I only worked half as hard as I played. And I worked a lot. 2-3 shows a semester, chapel planning, vespers services, RA duty, Humanities flashcards, an entire Bible to read...yet there was always time for half price appetizers, or paint markers on car windows, facebook, speed scrabble, midnight drives, hidden Scream masks, and laughter...oh the laughter. And when I woke up the next morning and scraped myself out of bed, I thought I was tired. Hell, I was tired.

But nothing compares to the bone-deep exhaustion of draining every last ounce of your spirit into an uphill climb called poor health. Being the back bone of a household that was your childhood home when you don't even know if you can stand straight anymore. Medicine schedules, pharmacy runs, ill-timed jokes because otherwise you might choke her she makes you so mad. Doctor's visits, running at every bump because you never know if she's fallen, or couldn't get up in the first place. Holding her when her mother fails to beat a degrading disease. Watching disease degrade her even as she pretends she's stronger than this.

Hearing your brother get life-lined over the top of your house, knowing he's rushing to surgery. Waiting room chairs. Waiting room floors. Vending machine coffee. Seeing your dad age like one of those time elapse scenes in a movie. Like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Every time you think you've won, they come and take a leg. What is the weight of pride? Below the knee? No, that's not enough. Let's go ahead and take the knee,too. And drain him of his blood. Rob him of his strength. I've seen the light go out of my brother's eyes and that...is exhausting.

Seeing grandpa in a hospital bed, knowing he is the last of a dying breed. Being my mother's arms and ears and eyes because she can't come see him. I can't see him. Not like this. But you pour forth a little effort...try to make him smile, and he's doing better so you can stop trying so hard. But still...you keep treading water because it's only a matter of time before a chink is found in the armour. Surely at 87 years old he can't be this strong? For how long? Telling him he can go home soon and seeing him look for the lie. Waiting for us to tell him he's been given up on. Trying not to let him give up on himself.

You come home from a job that is exhausting to a house that is exhausting and to look at this mess makes me cringe. Because I can't move one more step, let alone wash these dishes. Or cook this food. Or sweep this floor.

I feel like someone has swept the floor with me.

And when I finally...finally...find my head on a pillow...sleep won't come. This is when the tears come. When the fears come. When you can finally be still is when you can finally feel just how fucking tired you really are. And then the alarm clock rings and you have to do it all again.

Bedraggled...weary and worn. As if dragged through the mud. In a deplorable state.

In other words...my soul.

Pulchritudinous

pulchritudinous

/puhl-kri-tood-n-uh s/

adjective

1. Beautiful

synonyms: comely, alluring, beauteous, enticing, lovely, etc.

The funny thing about words is sometimes they sound ugly but they mean beauty. I mean, this word sounds like disgust, right? Like something my Auntie Lela (who is neither my aunt nor my mother's sister, but rather a 6 foot 2 black woman who loves me like her own and would gladly sever her own limbs to take my mother's pain away) would say about the nasty bits that get caught in the drain after doing dishes. "Chile, clean that drain out! I'm tryin' to wash my hands and there's nothin but a pulchritudinous stink cloggin' up my pipes. Pulchritudinous!"

One cannot escape it's odd similarities to other well-known ugly words...repulsive, crude, lewd, puss...even it's first synonym is "comely" (which sounds a lot like homely). But pulchritudinous is, in fact, a compliment. How odd.

In fact, my Auntie Lela (who swears I got my ghetto lips from her) has often told me how pulchritudinous I am. In the right way. Now, I'm sure she would never pick this one adjective to describe something's beauty...Like when she has her Whitney weave in and she wears that short skirt that shows off her Tina Turner legs...she looks mighty pulchritudinous, indeed. But she'd probably just say "Don't I look good?"

Would she even know if I told her she was pulchritudinous that it meant she looked beauteous? enticing? lovely? Maybe we should bring pulchritudinous back...

Fellas, won't you consider a new way to tell your girl she's fine?

"Yo shorty! You sure is pulchritudinous. Downright comely. Can I hit you up?"

Ok...maybe not. Or maybe yes...

nebbish

neb*bish

noun
/ 'nebiSH/

1. one who is fearful and timid, especially in making decisions and plans, in discussions, debates, arguments, and confrontations and in taking responsibility

2. (slang, mildly pejorative) A loser

Who doesn't know someone befitting this description? A jelly fish with no backbone, imagine if The Little Mermaid was written with Barbra Streisand in mind? What if Ursula had sung "Poor Unfortunate Souls" as a yente? For really, what Disney movie wouldn't be better if it was in Yiddish?

"Poor Unfortunate Nebbishes" doesn't quite have the same musicality, true...but what if it did?

*

I admit that in the past I've been a schmuck

They weren't kidding when they called me, well, a shikse

But you'll find that nowadays

I've mended all my ways

Repented, seen the light, and made a switch

To This

And I fortunately know a little magic

It's a shtick that I always have possessed

And dear lady, please don't get verklempt

I use it on behalf

Of the miserable, the lonely, and depressed (shlemiel)

*

Poor unfortunate Nebbishes

Oy vey, in need

This one longing to be thinner

That one wants to get the girl

And do I help them?

Oy gevalt!

*

Perhaps this is not kosher for a goy like me to post...but I bet it made you smile. See how much fun we can have with words? And while I usually recommend words only for building people up, should you find means to use this word...imagine the glee you will obtain knowing they have to google what nebbish means.

resplendent

re*splend*ent

adjective
/ri'splendent/

1. Attractive and impressive through being richly colorful or sumptuous

2. Glorious: having great beauty and splendor

synonyms: shining, bright, brilliant, refulgent, luminous, radiant, splendid, shiny, lustrous, sparkling, effulgent

To merely say the word brings about a sense of the delicious. Resplendent dances on your tongue, leaving you with a smile. Often I wonder if somehow I have powdered sugar left on my lips from simply speaking the word. Go ahead and try it. See?

Imagine seeing something so beautiful that simple adjectives seem inferior. Sitting on my magical patio attached to my former home, the way the light hit East Tennessee was resplendent. Or that special smile devoted to that special someone...being in the presence of whom makes her glow; her countenance was that of utter resplendence.

I have heard music that was so beautiful it was sumptuous, so sumptuous it was resplendent. I have been in churches that are radiant not only in their structure, but in their purpose: housing the children of God in resplendent stained glass windows, splendid archways, and lustrous light.

I have seen bodies move brilliantly in dance; choreographed resplendence. I have had my breath stolen by pirouettes, heart jump-started by hyper-extended backs, pulse quickened by limbs akimbo as if in flight.

The face of my mother before the pain claimed her. The giggle of a man who would always be really a boy during his short stay on this earth. The sound of my nieces and nephews playing. Saturday mornings in my father's rusty-red pick up truck. The smells of my grandmother's kitchen. The feel of a house teeming with lost souls who somehow found a home. The words of Buddy Wakefield. Hearing the voice of my Saviour and knowing it was him with no real way to explain it. Standing in front of a Van Goh. Anything sung by Adele. New York at Christmas. East Tennessee in the fall. Indiana at sunrise. Broadway. The Ocean. Life, at its best.

Simply resplendent.

bereft

be*reft

adjective

/bi'reft/

1. Deprived or lacking of something, esp a nonmaterial asset


2. (of a person) Lonely and abandoned, esp through someone's death or departure

When one receives news that a 13 year old boy has died, a sort of overwhelmingly silent loudness fills the air. Much like lifting a seashell to an ear, the whoosh of air plays tricks on your mind. You do not really hear the ocean. Just as you do not really hear the voices telling you such terrible things. You are empty. Bereft. And even words hold weight when everything else falls away.

Where had I heard this wind before

Change like this to a deeper roar?

What would it take my standing there for,

Holding open a restive door,

Looking down hill to a frothy shore?

Summer was past and the day was past

Somber clouds in the west were massed.

Out on the porch's sagging floor,

Leaves got up in a coil and hissed,

Blindly striking at my knee and missed

Something sinister in the tone

Told me my secret must be known:

Word I was in the house alone

Somehow must have gotten abroad,

Word I was in my life alone,

Word I had no one left but God.

Bereft - Robert Frost

"I like good strong words that mean something." Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

Once upon a time there were books without faces. Shocking, I know. And in these books, were pages. Tangible, whisper thin pieces of paper called pages. And on these pages were things called words. Beautiful concoctions of letters strung together to create a tapestry of story.

There were no silly little anagrams. No one dreamed of using a smiley face to convey pleasure. The only hashtags were found in opium dens. Emotions were not condensed like soup to arbitrary text limits. Emotions were conveyed in words. Words were collected like precious gems; the more you had, the higher your esteem.

It seems, somewhere along the way, we have forgotten the value in a word. I may blog so that words are not lost. This is my challenge. This is my vow.

Truman Capote once said, "To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make." Shall we make music together?