Words-shapes - Words & Shapes: A Commonplace Book

oh, i am finally old enough to know why my parents took so long to grab their coats. why they would ask us to get ready to go only to sit down for another round of coffee. what would i tell myself, at 10 years old? it’s okay. sit down with them too. take in the extra hour with your friend and her family. when you get home, write down every moment in your diary. one day you will be older and you will be waving goodbye to your best friend, and you will turn the key to start your beat up little car engine, and you will look back over your shoulder. her hair will be blowing in the wind and she will be beautiful and you will be, for a moment, struck by all of it. what you will feel is so wide and nameless that it will engulf you. and you will think of being 14 and kicking her under the table in math every time you wanted to whisper something behind the teacher’s back. you will think about how long the days felt, and how you could hold her hand whenever you wished, but you didn’t. and you will think about all of the people you could have lingered with. and you will wish, more than you have ever felt a wish, that the universe just gave you that - more time to linger. more time to say - i love you. i know i need to leave, but i don’t want to leave you. and when i go, i am leaving a piece of my heart that lingers too. 

one more round of coffee. the days are so short, and you are so lovely.

milk-thistle is an example of a word where the tongue barely moves… basilica is an example of a word where the movement involved is like a seesaw. opium as a word is circular to say. to say a word like violence involves a bit of a forced pause in the mouth where the o connecting the syllables is. etymologists trace the word’s history, poets feel the word’s impact, singers listen to the word’s musicality, linguists tell the word to go this way and that way, and the word is gracious to all in return

I know I never thought I would make it to 20 but boy am I looking forward to 30. and 40. and 50. and 75. growing old is exciting and it's a gift

the problem with being creative is that you start to feel very guilty when you haven’t created anything in a while

When a physicist falls in love :)

Richard Feynman's love letter to his deceased wife, 1946.