Words…they're more important than a best friend. Even if words want nothing to do with you we have no problem making them part of the original plan. We use words to get what we want. Abuse them when we don’t get what we think we needed.
Words make up our everyday. Words can be black and white versus extremely colorful. Words say nothing while often times reaching too far into the T.M.I. zone. Three quarters of the world is texting or emailing and somebody must be snail mailing because I see the postal carrier jeep putting through the wooded hood.
I’m guilty of using too many words. Two completely different people are editing my latest books and both are screaming, “Someone call Roto Rooter! My brain is plugged up and I can’t flush!
Very rarely do we hear “a” word… Twitter gives you enough space to thumb type a quote, unexpected thought or something freakishly odd your father might have said. But nothing really says one…not two, not three, four or twenty six. Just one…kind of like Madonna, Cher and Dido…John is now Mellencamp, as is Springsteen but Dave’s still attached to his last name Matthews.
In her latest film Eat Pray Love, Julia Roberts is introduced to the idea that the majority of us aren’t chasing lost childhood dreams and the be all to everything happy maker that romance novels make billions off but rather a single word that describes who it is we’ve become.
Ronald Reagan: Communicator
Bill Gates: Doer
Neal Armstrong: Achiever
Lewis and Clark: Seeker
Howard Stern: Us
What word are you chasing? How many letters have been forced to stand side by side with no funny business in the hallway to make up your word? Like a soul mate, everybody born before or after January 1, 0000 is linked to a word.
I’m not talking about a word other’s have chosen for you! Jerk, freak, *** and ********** are opinions from the outside world that keeps you from picking your booty up off the dance floor. So whatever word you choose, it can’t be changed by those who surround your everyday. This is about you and only you or if you’re like me, the other 15 me’s inside of me… Does that qualify me for paragraph? No!
My mother: Endless
Stepfather Joe: Enforcer
Look how easy it is to break, shatter and punt kick the rules…no outside opinions! The best part is you aren’t legally tied to an agreement that states whatever word you choose must be shared out loud with the entire class. Your word belongs to you and if you’re like Julia’s character not just any word will do which opens the door for something new to arrive at the front door of your reasons for saying, “I can’t explain why nothing makes me happy.”
Creative isn’t my word because all too often I want to be lazy. Thinker is an endless journey and writer leads to constant change. Masked maybe like Batman but hardly, I’m a Cancer and we’ve yet to learn how to stop wearing our feelings on the shoulders that keep the rest of the world high above our heads. Booger? Nope…rarely picked for the good stuff always wiped in places people can't see until its too late. Tree hugger…can’t…two words. Poet? Ha! Stand in any bookstore and watch how many readers enter that lane of traffic for something great to digest.
One word that only you can decide; there are no rules on how many letters make up what’s made you who you are.
While driving home late one night nearly ten chapters ago a bizarre appearance fell from the lips that have touched the edge of multiple radio station microphones. A word I had never heard, so I raced as well as chased to locate its physical earth evidence and found nothing so like Shakespeare I quickly penned it into the pages connected to a once living tree and have lived by its definition everyday thereafter believing that such a bleep, blunder or child speak suddenly taking shape from places I’ve never been, must mean something…
Kooshatayookooshtah.
Not Native American, Middle Eastern or made from the languages we’re taught in Martial Arts…nope…a goober, juicy slippery slobber, maybe a chunk of meat or a carrot that fell from between my teeth. I have not a single clue as to what any of it meant so I elected to play along and give it a reason to dance. Kooshatayookooshtah means the creative flow.
If you’re lucky you graduate from high school. Luck has a way of running dry through the twenties, thirties maybe your sixties and wow congratulations if you make it past seventy. If the word we choose truly is lucky…will it be like Gmail and AOL and we're forced to attach it to a number: Lucky 21,563. Sounds pretty fricken boring to me.
Maybe this is why dogs spin around in circles…they come within inches of finally discovering that one word they’ve spent an entire bone searching for and just like that it starts chasing their tail. If they catch it and don’t like the word…a dog instantly hits the floor dragging its butt across Mom’s clean carpet.
Maybe that’s my word…Butt. It’s everywhere I go. It can be big, tiny, round or thin, it can be extremely creative in tight situations. Being a butt allows you to make noise. Butts can be the talk of the town or completely invisible. Butts like to be dressed up and at times you can’t get them uncovered fast enough. I didn’t say *** that’s an outside opinion and in this game this butt rules.
Which word is, are, will be, has been, might or could best describe you?
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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