“She understood the importance of speech, speech about the unspeakable, and is a source of my ability to share the following story, which propelled me into a period of speechlessness.”
Alice Walker
Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters the Horror in Rwanda, Eastern Congo, and Palestine/Israel
In this lab I want to explore one of my purposes in life: To seek, find and use language for the indescribable...the inconceivable…the overwrought astoundment that takes over us when we experience life’s hurts.
It’s as if I’m on a lifelong treasure hunt for the words that describe and give language to those moments. The joy I feel when I find such words, that convey exactly how I feel, is like a high. The satisfaction in knowing that it is possible to survive the hurt. No matter how low it’s got me feeling. Someone else has been there, been where I have been, seen what I have seen, they too know and have found a way to describe it and survive it.
Sometimes when I’m in it, I can nail the feelings, with an analogy or a phrase that accurately sums it up. Those moments of clarity strike me, and when they do, they amaze me:
"My loneliness knows no bounds, it's as endless as the long depressing days since she physically left my world. Every time I reach for my phone, wanting to hear her voice or make her laugh is like agony to my depraved heart that knows I no longer can." ~Danielle Dominique
“ If I were potato salad, I would have been my Mama’s best batch she made for the potluck that accidentally slipped from my hands onto the ground en route to your house. To make it plain, it’s as if the sun, your only source of light, went on permanent hiatus and everything you know how to do requires that particular light. How do you function in its absence? What do you do? This has been my challenge since that day. “ ~Danielle Dominique
I want us to explore such moments in literature and beyond, when we found the language that described the hurt and had the moment of YES, this is what I have been missing and didn’t know.
Please bring examples to share with the Garden, may our findings be a new wealth of treasures for us all.
