Eleven. Eleven times. I think that’s a good number of times to use a specific word in a (relatively) short newsletter. By “good,” I mean many. And by “many,” I mean too many.
Maybe you don’t know what I’m talking about.
Last week I wrote to you about vulnerability in an effort, at least in part, to correct something I’d said in the newsletter before that. And at the end of last week’s newsletter, I invited readers to guess how many times I’d used the words “vulnerable” or “vulnerability.”
Sarah Davis won! She guessed it on the nose, and her prize is the immense satisfaction I’m certain she’s feeling right now.
Well done, Sarah! Thank you (all of you) for playing.
What’s strange to me is that I never considered looking for a synonym. It’s my habit to be watchful about how many times I use a given word in a single piece of writing. It’s my delight (and distraction) to consult a thesaurus (Merriam-Webster has an outstanding application on their site) in order to say the same thing in different ways.
When I was in high school, the vocabulary building program in my English classes had a section called Shades of Meaning. Here we’d learn a handful of words that were termed synonyms, and we’d have to demonstrate knowledge of how the words differed and the best ways to use them.
I hated it at the time, forever certain of failing the weekly (and very difficult) vocabulary quizzes. But I think I learned a lot. And here’s the thing: shades of meaning among synonyms are an excellent time.
So here’s your word game this time around: offer a synonym (or near-synonym) for vulnerable, and explain the shade of meaning: how is this word expressing something a little different than the word vulnerable itself?
You’re going to love this.
Maybe I’ll wish I’d chosen one, or some, or all of them.
In other news, I had to move last week’s discussion of What You Are Looking for Is in the Library to this week. That’s right! If you were unable to join us last week, never fear! We were all unable to join us last week, so you missed nothing!
Our discussion is re-scheduled for this Thursday, March 6, at 8 PM. Once again, reply “I’m in!” in the comments below, and on Thursday morning I’ll send you an email with the necessary details. I hope that all who wanted to join last week can do so this time around, and maybe we’ll add some more of you to the group. I’d love that!
And in the last bit of news, this week I’m enjoying spring break. I’ll spend most of it at home, tackling some purge/home-improvement projects, some yard work, and some writing (always some writing). But I did want to get out of town for a few days, so I’m writing to you now from Charlottesville, Virginia.
What is it about getting out of town? There’s just something delicious about shaking off the claims of work and household. And I love— as a friend once wrote of her road trip— to feel the road: to know and count the distance between here and there, to watch the change in landscape as you go.
We chose Charlottesville, in part, because it’s not too far from home. It took us a little over three hours to get here, and it was a beautiful drive. I love the sunlight in winter, especially in the afternoon: a light shade of amber, as if fields and trees have been drenched in Chardonnay. We drove through forests straight and still, everything bare except for the furled parchment leaves of the American beech. And then we emerged into this part of Virginia, a place we’ve loved for a long time. Everywhere are hills and the split-rail fences that limn them; open fields bleached pale; gnarled and wind-swept cedars; lone, dun trees in otherwise cleared farmland, holding their empty arms up against the sky.
We visited Charlottesville often in the earliest years of our marriage, making the southbound trek from our college town in western Pennsylvania. We’d leave on a Friday after work and stop en route at The Italian Oven in Somerset, PA, for dinner. That trip was twice as long, and I remember fading in and out of sleep while Bill drove, awakened now and again by wild and haunting songs from this Tears for Fears album.
Funny how we remember things: on this trip Bill and I have been recounting these details to each other. We concur on all of it, and yet we’re sure we haven’t got everything right. We didn’t listen to that album every time we drove to Charlottesville, did we? And how many times did we stop at that Italian place? Certainly it wasn’t always.
But it was always Adam we were going to see, our college friend who’d moved to Virginia to study here. His program was one year, but he stayed on for several years afterwards, living in a little three-room cottage that, once upon a time, was likely a farmhand’s house. The cottage is one of several on a winding road that climbs to what must once have been the farmhouse. The rolling fields all around these are mown, but just beyond Adam’s cottage the forest starts up and climbs more steeply: one pleat among many folds in the Blue Ridge Mountain range.
We visited him often, at all times of the year: in the spring when the forsythia amazed us with February blooms; in winter, when I planted myself in front of the wood stove. In summer, when I remember waking well after noon to birdsong and the leaves of some friendly shrub tapping at the window screen.
Always Bill and Adam were cooking dinner late into the night. We never ate supper until after 10 p.m.; we usually watched movies until the early hours; we always slept until afternoon.
Bill remembers watching a Steelers game here; I remember reading in the main room while it rained. At least once we hiked the mountain behind the cottage. At least twice we went into Charlottesville proper and had a walk around UVA. Several times we were around a fire pit in the front yard. And one time many friends from college descended for a weekend that resembled something out of The Big Chill: we blazed up the mountain in somebody’s jeep to a watchtower that some of us ended up climbing.
A favorite memory: one late night that weekend one of us stumbled outside into the dark, only to call everyone outside: the hillside and the mountain, as far as we could see, was lit up near and far with what were easily thousands of fireflies.
A more favorite memory: the time Adam introduced us to Wendy. It was always Adam-and-Wendy after that.
Over the years, at almost every visit with Adam and Wendy, we’ve talked about those days at the cottage. Since Adam’s death in November of 2022, Bill and I have talked about them some more. And over dinner last night, we talked about them again.
Those early years of our marriage were difficult ones in several ways. We don’t doubt we carried their weight with us to Charlottesville.
What we didn’t know then: the difficult things were going to work out.
What we didn’t imagine then: those cottage days would come to an end.
What we grieve now: the impossibility, in any capacity, of recreating them.
When we arrived yesterday in the late afternoon, Bill and I drove immediately to the cottage. It’s mostly the same: tiny footprint, metal roof. They’ve painted that roof, covered the porch screens in plastic, installed heat. And to my very real annoyance, an SUV was parked out front, blocking a full view of the house.
But imagination serves when we need it. See the four of us coming over the hill after a walk down the mountain. Adam is talking about what to make for dinner, and the whole weekend is still ahead of us.
Serenity Brook, Be still,--be still Midnight's arch is broken In thy ceaseless ripples. Dark and cold below them Runs the troubled water,-- Only on its bosom, Shimmering and trembling, Doth the glinted star-shine Sparkle and cease. Life, Be still,--be still! Boundless truth is shattered On thy hurrying current. Rest, with face uplifted, Calm, serenely quiet; Drink the deathless beauty-- Thrills of love and wonder Sinking, shining, star-like; Till the mirrored heaven Hollow down within thee Holy deeps unfathomed, Where far thoughts go floating, And low voices wander Whispering peace. -Edward Rowland Sill
As ever, you’re welcome to respond here in any way you’d like, but here are two reminders:
we’re looking for synonyms for “vulnerable”/”vulnerability,”
respond “I’m in!” in the comments if you’re planning to join the book discussion tomorrow.
I’ll end with this reminder, as I need to read it again myself:
Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. -I Thessalonians 4: 13-14
Thanks so much for being here.
With joy,
Rebecca
I'll offer woundable to the collection of synonyms. Being open enough or close enough to others that you can be known, but also experience ruptures (and hopefully repair).
I love the photograph you used. It really captures the ideas you expressed. I also love the descriptions of grief. Grief occurs in life, so much more than I ever realized until recent years! Even disappointments are a type of grief, and I like how you put words to different expressions of grief.
As for the synonyms…I think the word “exposed” encompasses a lot (like Moriah suggested). It can mean exposure as in something to be protected (as in the example of your children’s lives) and it can also mean choosing to expose our lives, as when we choose to be vulnerable with other people. I love fragile as Meghan suggested, as in an object (or children!), and another choice might be “open to.” 🤗