Wordlessness

YES, THE HIGHEST things are beyond words. That is probably why all art aspires to the condition of wordlessness. When literature works on you, it does so in silence, in your dreams, in your wordless moments. Good words enter you and become moods, become the quiet fabric of your being. Like music, like painting, literature too wants to transcend its primary condition and become something higher. Art wants to move into silence, into the emotional and spiritual conditions of the world. Statues become melodies, melodies become yearnings, yearnings become actions.

Ben Okri, from the book, A Way of Being Free

I have been wordless lately and not in a profound sense. Intimidated by the blank page more like. Even in speech, not using the words that would best describe how I'm feeling or what I've experienced. I want my words to move and shape and connect.

I've read some amazing writing. It fascinates me how an author can string some words together and move me to tears or laughter or thoughfulness or action. It's not in the words themselves but how and where they put them.

Years ago I read the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It was one of the first serious pieces of literature that I had read, not counting the required high school English class book list. I remember the exact moment when I figured out who was the father of Hester Prynne's illegitimate child. It wasn't said in words, it was discovered in glances and undercurrents and subtle body movements. Nothing like a "who done it" genre. It was like I was in the room, a participant in the drama. It was an epiphany.
I wonder if it would hit me the same way now, if I was reading it for the first time.
Since then, I have read beautiful prose about life and love and humanity. I used to write down lines from books in my journal. "Good words that entered me and became moods, became the quiet fabric of my being"