Write on a Dictionary Word

This exercise is simple. Open a dictionary. Randomly pick a word. Write a short piece from that word.

word: adieu

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The only dictionary at hand in "book" form is my Portugues/English dictionary, its faded paper jacket in navy and cream hiding its scarlet bindings. Wonder why.

When I said adieu to Brazil I thought I was leaving my first love, the first boy to kiss me. And I had never even had a beau, but Brazil, Brazilians, had captured a part of my soul and held it captive, showing a side of this white-bread, suburban scardy-cat of other possibilities. A country of possibilities, Amazon-wide, wild, unimagined, and yet very real.

In a year I was bewitched, betrayed and bewildered. Bothered, a bit too! Life as a 16 year-old in another country, another culture, another time and place, was such a push to my personal borders that I never retraced my old outlines.

I am forever grateful.

word: Elimination

As a parent of teen/preteen boys, the word elimination instantly summons course jokes on bodily functions. Testosterone poisoning? I try to eliminate these conversations from the dinner table, but dad seems to enjoy them as well. What's a mother to do? There is no CTRL-ALT-DELETE command for unsavory meal topics. Not in my house.

But eliminate is just a roll of the tounge away from illuminate. "Shine your light." Let it shine, let it shine. Did I really sing that song in youth choir, pounding on half-formed notes on a cheap guitar. "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine." Yes, I did, with a smile on my face as I, the Catholic girl, spent my second session in church each sunday with the Lutheran youth choir. More fun. Better (mostly!) music. And a real choir director. My religious distinctions.

But I eliminated organized religion from my life as I hit my second decade, disgusted primarly, with sexism and "do as I say, not as I do" examples which swarmed around me in experience and the media.

Yet core tennants of those organized cabals still illuminate and inform me. The ten commandmants, with "Do unto others" holding fast in my mind and heart. Most of the time...

Elimination of those other distractions like the infalability of the Pope and Adam as first in line, with Eve the doomer of all.

Sometimes tho, it is still just...a piece of...elmination...eh?