anopisthographic

anopisthographic  adj. having writing or printing on one side only“The only thing that makes one an artist is making art. And that requires the precise opposite of hanging out; a deeply lonely and unglamorous task of tolerating oneself long enough to push something out.”― David Rackoff, Half EmptyI have to admit that lately I haven’t been scouring the OED as much to find words. I cheat a bit here and there and look at sites on the web that list strange or rarely used words. Anopisthographic is one such word that was found in this manner.  When I found this word, it made me recall what it was like to physically write on paper with a pen…for pages and pages…and how I rarely, if ever, do that any longer. It is in the physical “pen in hand” practice of writing that I feel I am working the hardest at creating something. Typing just doesn’t match up. If you are writing with a pen and you make a mistake, you have to work to remove it. You really have to think about what you are going to put down on the paper as it isn’t very easy to remove or rearrange it. In a way, you physically live your story. If you want to move a paragraph, you have to cut the paper and move it. If you misspell a word, you have to scratch it out or erase it. It leaves a mark as a reminder of your mistake.  If your pencil breaks or your pen runs out you have to sharpen or find a new one. I often think about the fact that I rarely physically write and if I did that it might strengthen my words that same way exercise strengthens my muscles, gives me stamina.The act of writing on paper is also quite therapeutic. About a year ago I started “The Artist’s Way” because I was suffering from a creative block and just general malaise caused by being a stay at home suburban mom. The first thing you do when you start the Artist’s Way is wake up and write. You basically rise from a dead sleep, open a notebook and just write whatever it is that comes to mind. They are called “morning pages.”  At first it starts out as gibberish and doesn’t make a lot of sense. If you keep thinking of the same word over and over again, then you just write it. You’re not supposed to judge it.  It’s supposed to be a sort of cleansing of your “artist soul.” Sometimes it felt like a continuation of my dream and I would start in one place and end up in another. Other times, it was a struggle and made me angry. Rarely, a phrase or sentence would happen and start the creative journey. I haven’t gone back to read what I wrote in some time and I probably should. I didn’t get through the entire process of the Artists Way. I never created a masterpiece.When I wrote my morning pages I filled up both sides of the page. Not writing on the other side felt wasteful and this has always been my feeling about writing on paper in general. I suppose it comes from a desire to fill up a page or pages the same way I do so many things in my life - my fridge, my closet, my brain. Having all of the pages embossed with lines of penmanship makes me feel accomplished, like I reached my creative quota, tangible proof that I made something.  I love pressing hard enough on the page so that the lines create a relief map on the other side and crinkle the paper, making it look worked over.This word also makes me think about the old wooden school desks we used to write on when I was in elementary school. Every student was assigned their own, permanent desk each year and they were quite old. Each was like a time capsule from all of the other students who had sat at that desk before. Despite the constant warnings from teachers not to vandalize them, we still did. We had to leave our own mark. Random carvings on the wooden tops, crusty dried up bubble gum caked along the underside that looked like little upside down mountain ranges when you stuck your head under and looked up. Secret messages and love notes scribbled in permanent marker, sometimes in hidden places. We’d always have to write on top of workbooks or stacks of loose leaf to avoid inadvertent impressions on our vocabulary exercises. The surface of the desk was almost like the other side of the page coming through the one we were writing on. Like secret messages the desk was sending us about its history, its life story.It makes me sad to think that my son won’t know a desk in the same way. That a white screen with buttons will be his most familiar definition of a page. It is up to me to ensure he  experiences the physical act of writing on paper despite the fact that the world we live in is making it obsolete. I want him to know and understand the meaning of “page” outside of an LCD screen. I want him to know how to create them in his own hand and have his own style of handwriting the way I have mine. I want him to have both sides to write on.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_i1xk07o4g

joy

joy n. a feeling of great pleasure and happinessThe word joy is inevitably being said more these days as it is the holiday season. "Joy to the world" yadda yadda yadda. I was thinking about joy today while eating lunch. I must have heard it on some Target commercial or perhaps on a sign somewhere. In my mind, joy has a more profound meaning than just "great pleasure." I feel like I often feel happiness or, more often contentment, but joy seems somehow more pure and untainted. I think we all have moments of happiness in our lives, but our moments of joy are far, far fewer and yet more crystalized in our memories.I think the OED may have fallen short in defining this word so broadly. I associate joy with childhood. It is happiness that knows no cynicism - pleasure in its purest form. When we are children, we find joy in simple things - like climbing trees or being tickled. The idyllic childhood has you feeling this happiness in an unfettered, unspoiled way. The longer your span of enjoying this joy - or untainted happiness - the happier your childhood. When we are young, we haven't experienced a lot of evil yet - hopefully. We are naive. We aren't looking around the corner for the catch or the ghost that spoils it all. It's a lot like the way a child runs - with complete abandon - because they don't know to expect fatigue or pain yet. The moment is singular and completely in the present.When we grow older, we collect the moments when our joy was abbreviated, either by the course of nature or by other people. We become cynical, hardened, expecting our happiness to be short lived or false. We are far likelier to experience contentment - joy's smug, adult counterpart. Contentment is what we settle for when we are adults because joy is so fleeting and hard to attain intentionally. In this day and age childhood has been expanded far into the twenties, but I don't think that childhood joy endures. It morphs into a strange hipster irony - almost a reflection of joy - that mocks its existence because it's easier to be cool and impress people than to get to the unattainable joy.There are moments in my adulthood when I have experienced joy like I used to as a child. It was not on the day my son was born. Watching him fly out of my body into the arms of my doctor while my husband held my left leg and stared in horror is not what I would describe as joyous. It was a wonderful moment in some ways, but there was too much fear and surprise involved to call it joy. I most often find joy in music...and I'm not talking Beethoven or a Puccini opera...although those would work. I find joy in just listening to all sorts of music and just being there, in the moment...or sometimes singing in the car while Graham bops around. It could be Katy Perry or Metallica, there's just something about music that brings on a moment of joy for me.Today marks the passing of a great musician, Ravi Shankar, who I became familiar with when I was 19 years old. My father was very sick from radiation treatment for his brain tumor and I had a job working in a factory soldering circuit boards. I was supposed to be a freshman at Providence College but had to stay back a semester because my father's health was so precarious, as was our financial situation. I used to go to the public library after work and check out CDs from the basement music department. I had heard sitar and raag in the Beatles music I sometimes listened to so one day I checked out a Ravi Shankar CD. I brought it home and listened to it over and over. There was something very relaxing and quietly joyful in the strings, something I really, really needed during that difficult time.My father's tumor was in the occipital lobe of his brain and he had lost a great deal of his eye sight when they removed the tumor and could no longer read books - which was one of the ways I am convinced that my father found joy. I remember sitting in our small living room listening to my CD on a set of headphones when my father asked to hear what I was listening to. So I played him the Ravi Shankar music that I was so fond of. I like to think that that moment was one of joy for my father - just existing in the music the way he used to escape in his books. We played it many times after that and it became our habit to listen to music in the same way we used to share books. There was something about the sound of the sitar that healed both of our pain. It was like listening to audible peace. The memory brings me joy whenever I hear those strings.R.I.P Ravi Shankar[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYlPcbNAPH8]

voulu

voulu adj. lacking in spontaneity; contrivedHow many words do you know that end in a "u" like this one? I don't think I know any others, hence the reason I chose it.   Voodoo ends in an "o" but that doesn't count. It's the "u" that makes this word special. For some reason this word makes me think of the Lululemon shopping bags they give out - because spending 80 dollars on something you are going to sweat in should come with a little free inspiration. So in the spirit of spontaneity, I am going to ponder some of these sayings from my shopping bag as an exercise for today's post. Now some of these quotes are well known and wise, while others sound like they came out of the mouth of some type A, female, yoga freak psycho...so I'll include both varieties."Do one thing a day that scares you." - Eleanor RooseveltOkay. I think have this covered. I wake up and deal with a screaming child that's usually covered in urine and jumping on a crib mattress. I also face several different kinds of poop - baby, dog and if I'm not careful, some other kinds when we go to the mountain for a walk or run. Poop is very scary. I don't know if Eleanor got the verb in her quote right though. Am I supposed to drive the wrong way down the highway or drink bleach? I suppose in the Lululemon yogaverse I'm supposed to do a head stand in class and be in the moment while fearing that my $80 tank top will flap down and expose my flabulous belly..."Salt + High Fructose Corn Syrup + Butter = Early Death"What if I dip a carrot in it?"Friends are more important than money."Does this hold true if you go shopping with friends? I would think that the two would cancel each other out. What if you wanted to buy a special present for your friend and you have no money? What if the friend is dying and it's the very last thing you can do for that person before they expire? What if you and your friends have no money and you can't buy food? No, wait. What if you and your friend have no money and you need to eat but the only way to get money is to not be friends anymore? What's more important then? Gotcha Lululemon."This is not your practice life. This is your actual life."Shit. I thought we were just practicing and I'm already sucking at this. Well, I'm going to stay in bed and eat donuts all day since I've already screwed this up."Visualize your eventual demise. It can have an amazing effect on how you live in this moment."So this morning while munching on half of a banana I visualized my death. Hm. Now let me go do something that scares me. Hand me the bleach and a donut because this ain't practice. Tootles! I'm going to drive the wrong way down the highway now!"The world moves at such a rapid rate that waiting to implement changes will leave you two steps behind. DO IT NOW, DO IT NOW, DO IT NOW!"This is the last quote because the bag is yelling at me now. Unfortunately, I know people who live like this - many of them. I had never really met anyone who was like this until I moved to NYC and worked on 5th Avenue. They are the perfect young ladies in the Chanel boots with perfect teeth and pencil skirts. They carry their lunch in little Lululemon bags and talk about their Wall Street boyfriends and where they ate dinner last night. They can take you down with one swipe of their perfectly manicured paws in a meeting and then pop 3 Aderalls in the ladies room 30 minutes later. They are on top of their game all of the time - except they are ALL THE SAME. Like little fembots from an Austin Powers movie waiting to shoot you with their boob guns.The thing is, if you are constantly forcing yourself to change, eventually, you will not be the same person. Change is good on a small scale. No one is perfect and I think trying to be a better person or eat less fat is a fine thing to strive for. It's a matter of what you are changing and for whom. So DO IT NOW is a dangerous thing. If anything, Lululemon should be a little ashamed of this quote on their bag. Yoga is about being in the present, meditation and self acceptance - at least when you are doing it right. This element is important even in Bikram, which is pretty intense.So here is a quote that would be more fitting to be on a yoga bag:"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - GandhiThe world would be a better place if we spent less time on changing ourselves and more time trying to change the world around us through our deeds and actions. This is the change we should DO NOW.Namaste:)

osculate

osculate verb kissMy son just recently learned how to kiss on demand. He opens his mouth wide and suctions it to your cheek with a loud "mmm---ahhh" sound when you ask him for a kiss. It is my favorite thing in the world. When I was kid I used to dread family occasions or holidays when people were over and I was forced to kiss or hug people. I remember I would run and hide when I heard the doorbell ring just to avoid it. I come from an Italian family so the formality of kissing friends and family is important and one is considered rude if you do not do so. I suppose the main reason I clam up is due to being shy - an attribute I truly believe I was born with.The world can be very cruel to people who are shy. It is not a trait that the majority of people find endearing. Shyness is often misunderstood and in our extroverted culture, not something that gets you very far. I have been shy since as far back as I can remember. You probably wouldn't tag me for this trait these days as I most often disguise this aspect of my personality.  There are still clues to it but I fear that most people mistake it for weirdness, snobbery, or pretension - which is most unfair.It seems most people stereotype shy people as being sweet and mouselike, hiding in corners, timid and shaking. But that is not the case at all. Shy people have opinions and passions just as strong as extroverts. Just ask someone who is shy and I am sure you will get an ear full - once they get to know you. I don't know if all shy people are this way, but I just enjoy observing and not participating. I'd rather take in everything and make a story about it than participate. I don't enjoy making the first move. I like to go slow and ease myself in when I think it's safe and when I'm ready. There's nothing wrong with this in my opinion. And shyness doesn't mean that one has to be a wallflower either. Shy people are like little secret packages waiting to be opened.I have always channeled my shyness through writing. The first time I did this was my senior year in high school where I wrote an article in the county paper about not going to the prom...and about how happy I was not to go. I received many cheers and jeers from it, but for once I had a voice and I didn't have to speak to put it out there - and people listened. In college, I wrote for the newspaper for 4 years in the commentary section, no less. Unfortunately, upon graduating in a bad economy, I wasn't able to work as a journalist as I had planned and gave up my voice for a long time...until most recently with this blog. My writing has become an extroversion where my everyday life is lacking.My shyness makes me fear being the center of everyone's attention, yet long for it with all of my being. I believe there are many people like me. Instead of overcoming or ridding our lives of this attribute, we find a different language - writing, dancing, singing - that releases our voice in a different way than just playing a role at a party and keeping up conversation.Shyness is at the core of creativity, grace, humility...all of those traits that people find lacking in society and that most people strive for. Perhaps they are so rare because most people misunderstand them as negative attributes...the way the world mistakes shyness for so many other unsavory things. 

cordate

cordate adj. heart-shapedThe first thought that came to mind with this word was Nirvana's "Heart Shaped Box" and how goofy it would be to sing a song called the "Cordate Box." But anyway, the figural heart that we associate in love, affection, Valentine's Day and religion looks nothing like our own internal organ heart at all. Our hearts have a vaguely similar shape if you turn it sideways, but otherwise it more closely resembles a steak. So I was curious and I looked up where the figural heart shape originates and it turns out there is quite a lot of debate about this subject. Apparently, it can be traced back to the silphium plant - which served as a form of contraceptive in Africa. I was going to post a photo of a silphium seed pod but it turns out that I cannot find one that actually looks anything like a heart - just a bunch of photos of coins with something that looks like a heart that is supposed to be the seed pod...so I don't really buy this theory...and I don't understand how NOT creating a baby means love...that would be the antithesis in my mind, but to each his own.Other theories hold that the heart shape comes from Christianity, ie. the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Sacred Heart of Jesus. However, nothing I have found dates the depiction of this symbol back to an actual figural origin. Now, I have looked for all of 10 minutes so it might exist, but I still find it interesting how it is not very clear.The third origin of the figural heart that I found in my brief searchings was its similarity in shape to the female vulva or buttocks. But then I also found reference to testicles...which in my opinion more closely resembles the heart shape than female naughty bits. Men have asses too so I don't buy the female tie to the heart shape that is so often referenced.The cordate symbol of love that we have come to know is arguably one of the most important shapes in our society. We come across it everywhere...and we don't know exactly where it came from. Interesting...Music[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6P0SitRwy8]...and in lots and lots of logos....The heart shape has it's own holiday and is most likely one of the first drawings most of us make as children (well, girls anyway) and yet there is no clear idea of its origin. We know where the circle came from and can read hyrogliphics but something we see everyday remains a mystery. It symbolizes all of these warm, fuzzy cozy sentiments yet we don't know who to thank for it.Maybe just being something purely good makes us forget it is essentially a stranger as far as symbols go. It is a universal symbol of goodness, of joy, and in my opinion, there are too few of those in our world so perhaps it's best to just cherish it and smile when we see it.

eudaemonism

eudaemonism n. a system of ethics that bases moral value on the likelihood of actions producing happiness.I have always fought a losing battle with the concept of "happiness." I'd like to think that someday I will find the true, innate meaning of the word, but I doubt it. I read a fair amount and know that few people really find the core, "holy grail-like" meaning of happiness. That is why this word truly intrigued me. To have a system of ethics that bases moral value on the likelihood that it will produce this enigma we call "happiness" is absurd - like the infinity symbol...some never-ending loop. Happiness doesn't seem to have just one definition. It means so many different things to so many people. To a starving child in the Sahara, happiness is endless clean, cool water and food as compared to someone diagnosed with a terminal illness where happiness might be a night without pain or 10 extra days of their life to be lived with their family. Donald Trump deems happiness a much different thing than I do...or does he? It would seem that as life gets increasingly happy, the bar rises - like an addiction, a drug that makes us believe that we deserve much more than we actually do - but is that the case? Is happiness much more simple than one would think? Maybe Donald Trump find his true happiness in a box of Malomars while I dream of a yacht sailing on the mediterranean.And then there is that lucky place in life where happiness becomes monotony. Where we reach a certain level of what we call "happiness" and expect that it will exponentially grow from that point. Somehow we begin to think that the world owes us the next level because we have earned a certain amount of points or reached a certain threshold, like a game. That is where things most often fall apart. This is the juncture of where happiness meets its counterpart - not sadness - but gratitude. Every truly happy person in life at some point must come to terms with gratitude. At the height of our life's bell curve where we have reached the highest arch of happiness and when the line gradually descends, gratitude begins - where some turning point make us turn away from the easy happiness we have and make us grateful for ever having experienced it at all. This is the point where people find their greatness, their groove, their reason to live. I fear that there are few of us who get to this point. I believe the majority of people either find stasis and accept their level of happiness or - worse - constantly strive to a higher, unattainable level - possibly leading to greed and arrogance.To follow the curve downward is much harder. Seemingly it leads to things like gratitude, humility and humbleness. I believe only the great can follow this path - Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa. It's a completely selfless place - perhaps a power greater than ourselves - where we surrender things over and are happy just to experience life.Or maybe, happiness is inconceivably simple...like a surprise party or unexpected treat. No bell curves or expectations...just a feeling of joy that seems so rare in life because it is meant to be truly enjoyed and not dismissed like every other minute we live - like that little kid feeling you got running down the stairs to see what was under the tree at Christmas. It didn't last long...probably only as long as it took to rip that first piece of paper off the first package...just a few seconds. That fleeting, giddy sense of exuberance that makes your heart race and your face beam without trying...like the day your child was born...or the day you fell in love. That intangible feeling of being fully and totally appreciative of life and what is happening in the present - and not thinking about the future or past.For me, true happiness is found in that short, fleeting moment and I am learning to accept that in the totality of my life, I may chase it relentlessly to only experience it a handful of times and constantly strive to be grateful for those hard earned moments.

oneiric

oneiric adj. relating to dreams or dreaming[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9Wnh0V4HMM]As my husband can attest to, I love to sleep. Perhaps I have ADD or some other disorder, but during the day I just can't relax. Work has always been the thing to set me straight and provide me with a course for concentration and focus, but since I am at home now with my son, I find it difficult to avoid boredom. I've never been good without human company. As shy as I can be at times, I need human contact to feel occupied and useful. So being a alone with a dog and a one year old in the suburbs is a form of torture for me...and somedays I count the minutes until I can retire and surrender my brain to slumber.When I sleep, I feel like I am watching some strange and bizarre movie. My brain finally lets go of trying to organize and solve problems and my imagination takes over. When I was a kid I developed the ability to force myself to dream about certain scenarios...most often I wanted to be in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark or Working Girl (I had a thing for Harrison Ford). I could insert myself into the action and adventure scenes. I don't know if this is some special kind of ability or not, but it helped me to escape from the unpleasantries of my childhood. I could be anywhere or anything I wanted to in my dreams, no matter how implausible or crazy...and no one knew about it or could tell me not to.As I grew older, I stopped forcing myself to dream things and just let my brain do the inventing. This was fun as my brain connected different things I had seen or known from different parts of my life. This is pretty much how I dream currently.In college, I finally just slept. I don't remember dreaming during that period. I was pretty busy and slept as little as I ever have either due to school work or just going out and having fun. My brain was pretty much filled up during my college years. I was writing a lot and facing a life of possibilities.There was just too much going on for me to really dream at night. When I did dream, I had the same recurring one of driving my car into a lake...or off a bridge. I still occasionally have this dream and sometimes I fear driving near water. I am always backing up into the water in my dream and once I am immersed, I wake up. I know it has some sort of deep meaning, but I don't care to know what that is. I spend enough time analyzing my conscious life. I don't want to know about the secret passages in my brain.Pregnancy was a new milestone in my dream life. I dreamt too much when I was pregnant. I had recurring dreams about dropping my baby on the floor repeatedly...and losing him. I had dreams about someone taking him away from me or Dan being pregnant. Pregnancy dreams for me were more nightmarish than anything. Sometimes they were funny. I don't remember all of them specifically but I remember telling other people about them at the time, mostly coworkers. They served as good stories.The reason why I am even on this topic is because I had a dream last night that a specific company I am interviewing with called me back in for another interview (I've been in twice and met the founder of the company). Lately my dreams are manifesting my worries and fears. I am dreaming the next phase of actual events in my life, only I am creating these absurd and disturbing scenarios. I suppose it is a way of forcing myself to be grateful for what I have, showing me nightly that things could be so much worse. Or perhaps I am just afraid of what comes next...or bored to tears by the present.Life was so much simpler when I was a kid and hanging out with Harrison Ford every night...