Words and language are my livelihood. I write words, play with words, make up new words, string them in new ways, expand their meaning, fuse them….and then, there are times when even I get sick of words.

Sometimes words feel too loud, too much, too heavy, too wordy! Yet words are a basic unit of exchange and a simple currency we trade with others; “thank you” and “I love you” are music to our ears, right?

Words connect us to people, places, and things. My Spanish words connect me with my Spanish culture and family. My English words connect me with my Ohio friends.

As a long-time meditator and noticer, I’m also aware of languages that have no words: the language of beauty, the language of love, the language of touch, the language of sound, the language of light, and the language of silence– of “isness”– where no words are necessary.

Just noticing this helps me– it helps me appreciate the importance and value of words, as well as the importance and value of the space between the words, and of silence itself.

When I get “too wordy” it is because I’m trying really (really) hard to understand something. Paradoxically, if we’re willing to go behind the words themselves, we usually find what we were attempting to understand and convey all along.