There's a Word For That

In high school my dad, then living, would scream ‘be the ball!’ from the iron forged bleachers of the gymnasium whenever one was passed to me. And my mother, post-diagnosis, would for over a year think herself Ghandi and will me to ‘be the change I wish to see in the world’. My grandmother insisted I be a ‘good girl’, while my first boyfriend a ‘good girl’ and the words, the collective archive of beings and becomings sat sharply on my tongue. It may be that I was with the boyfriend and am not with the grandmother. I could say, ‘to be is not I am, is not I will, is not I was’. I could speak from the belly. I could give a sideline roar.

But there are no loud carry overs in my household. My mother would ask that I be the change. My father would roll over in his grave and my grandmother would spat something incoherent - some aggregation of words in air that would overstate without being understood.

There’s a word for that. There’s a dictionary of english words. There are 171,476 put to use, 47,156 obsolete- only if you discount the colloquialisms, inflections, TBA, and undeveloped technical vocabulary. And then there’s the Armenian alphabet, the Japanese, the Icelandic. There are the quick utterings of whatever he I chose to be with - a Danish professor, a Guadalajaran line cook. I may say ‘I am in love; I will marry you; I was wrong’. More likely, ‘I am angry; I am sorry; I was wrong’. But to just be - to become the architect of my own alphabet is never so simple. ‘I was wrong, I am trying, please forgive me.’