I’ve been thinking a lot about words lately—which is a clause that makes me seem like a caricature of myself. Nonetheless, I’m building up my dictionary, a document with the title Words and vocabulary - [my name] dictionary.1 I write down all the unfamiliar words I encounter. The structure of my dictionary goes like so: part of speech, definition in my own words, sentence in my own words, sentence from one of the dictionary websites. It’s one of those little things that makes me very happy.
And so, I’ve been paying more attention to the physical qualities of words, words as an arrangement of letters.
I’ve always thought discreet was an ugly word, for the silly obtuse reasons anyone dislikes a word for its physical qualities. Shut up about “moist”! I thought for an instant, when I first encountered the word discrete that it was a different spelling of the word. It’s not. This was a while ago now, before I created my dictionary, but here goes.
Discrete, adj.: distinct, as parts
In a sentence: Though they are homonyms, the words discrete and discreet refer to two discrete concepts.
A sentence in the Cambridge Dictionary : This area has four discrete neighborhoods centered around a school.
Discreet, adj: modest, cautious, secretive.
In a sentence: She was a discreet woman, quite guarded, and her home reflected this.
A sentence in the Cambridge Dictionary: They are very good assistants, very discreet - they wouldn't go talking to the press.
I don’t care, not really, that they have discrete meanings. I see the word discrete written on gallery walls and in magazines and my books, written in the sky, and I try not to smile but I do, just a bit. It’s great to see it written all over my life and let its homophone fly right over me. It makes me very happy, even though I know just what the feeling is— the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, a bit of pantheism, vaguely Swedeborgian (if I am to believe The Clark’s description of George Inness’ New Jersey Landscape).
We wanted to wander through the museum where we would see New Jersey Landscape and one of the largest museums in the United States of America, and we were in no rush to get to the house. So my grandfather and I decided to stay overnight in the town where we saw toured the college, in a recently-face-lifted 1950s motel. He drove the car up to the door. We kept talking about the mountains and the woods, the space and the bucoil. I’ve never been a person of few words, and neither has my grandfather, so we suit each other well.
We met another family on the tour of the college. My grandfather and his grandfather got along very well. Our families saw each other the next day in one of the largest museums in the United States of America. I thought it could be something, and I didn’t even know what that meant. Keeping contact, extending the moment beyond what it was. Nothing romantic, something else. A simple twist of fate, maybe. But no information was exchanged, and it’ll slip into memory soon. I’ve been listening to too much Bob Dylan.
In the morning, my grandfather had a phone call he had to take in the room, so I sat alone on the little patio and read my book, writing in my notebook. I also called my mom. But mostly I just stared across the street at the little mountains poking shyly into the sky.
When I was younger I used to drive through these mountains, drive through any set of large hills, and think about all the trees in front of me, on an incline, poking into the sky. I knew how it worked, that part was intuitive enough. But it still felt kind of magical. It still does.
Now I drive—I drive!— down all of the roads I’ve known since I was a kid, Matunuck School House, Old Post, Route one, two, Ministerial Road2 . No one calls Route One Commodore Perry Highway just like no one calls Ministerial State Route 110. All across America, the world, people have their regionalisms about roads.
Back home, home-home, one calls the Henry Hudson 9A or 907V, not when it’s the Henry Hudson. (I)87 is both the Deegan and 87. Et cetera. I like roads, so this writing makes sense to me, but I doubt it’ll have any sort of appeal. To round out this discussion: my grandpa and I extended our drive to Rhode Island by at least two hours going down down US-20, the longest road in the United States of America.
I spent more time driving than in the passenger’s seat this trip, I think. I was dropped into the deep end a few times, and I figured it out. I scared my grandfather and my little brother, the former more genuinely than the latter. It’s true that you learn the geography of a place better in the driver’s seat. I LOVE TO DRIVE, I LOVE THE UNITED STATES OF HIGHWAYS. THANK YOU DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, THANK YOU ROBERT MOSES (ha. Robert persona non grata Moses. I’m finally reading The Power Broker, which I’m so so excited about; in life there’s much to be thankful and grateful for)—EVEN THOUGH I HAVE NOT DRIVEN MUCH IN NEW YORK.
Two nights ago, I drove us to pizza and bingo night at the community center. None of us, my grandparents or me or my brother, won any games. Waiting for Bingo to start, my brother and I engaged in feats of physical strength outside the cluster of retirees. I would like to record the outcomes. So I won’t forget.
Kick-Punting an old basketball down the court: point him, though it never made it into the net.
Cartwheels: point me, because he couldn’t do one and I spent years of my life doing them.
Shooting baskets: point him, because he is good at basketball and I’m so, so bad.
Running off the sugar high: point him.
Lying down on the fresh-cut dry grass, staring up at the dark cloudless near-dusk sky, trying to burn it into memory: point me.
Jumping over your sister, who is lying down in the grass and staring up at the dark, cloudless, near-dusk sky: point him.
Now I’m on a pretty empty Amtrak car and just moved seats to avoid an inconsiderate woman. The man in the Bruins sweatshirt, who was right behind me as I traversed two cars trying to find an empty seat, moved long before me. I decided not to sunk-cost it.
And we’re almost out of Rhode Island. Pulling out of the last stop in the state. My summer is officially starting, my job and my routine. I have overlapping plans and I’m trying to make it all work. I am writing down my resolutions and listening to First Thought Best Thought, an instrumental album by the great Arthur Russell.
Recently, a song from the album shot up to his number one track on spotify and I feel like a significant part of that. Which is great, I love to feel like a part of something.
So far the summer has been full of small joys coupled with my desperate grasping, trying so hard to not let them fade away. Chance meetings, losing myself in museums and The Power Broker, finally being able to drive my grandma’s car, and all all all of the bucoil—making up words. Places of beauty, tunnels made up of trees.
I spend half the time telling myself don’t forget. But I’ve learned, much-delayed, that maybe I should just let them be what they are. Be what they were. It might be good to forget. At least some of it. Or let them fade into the rearview mirror, popping up now and then in my memory.
Ephemeral joys, right? Staring out into the marshes watching the birds flock by. I’ve noticed, over the past few years, that the flocks have slowly developed/devolved into less organized shapes.
Ephemeral joys, right?
I’m sure you all know my name but I’m so so scared of the internet.
Which Jhumpa Lahiri, raised within probably a ten-mile radius of the house, has written about. My mom thinks she’s stepped foot in ours, which is like my dad thinking he stayed in the same place, slept in the same room, as Albert Einstein when he worked as a trail guide at Bandelier National Monument and Einstein was not-quite-at-Los-Alamos. As I do, I’m losing track of myself.