“My brother and I were having an animated conversation at the dinner table. When I spoke, my hands moved just as much and just as quickly as my mouth. I don’t remember if we were actually arguing or just being loud, but I remember Mom telling me to sit on my hands - partially to prevent me, in my excitement, from knocking over my glass (which I was wont to do as a child), but mostly to encourage me to find language to express myself.
I love words and the power they hold in their precision. I love knowing that there are words for the way the earth smells after a storm, and for those who live on the same meridian, but on opposite sides of the equator, so that their noon-shadows fall in opposite directions. But there are moments that words don’t reach and gestures that feel like floodlights after centuries of spinning in darkness. Being articulate matters, but to me, knowing how to listen and how I carry myself into conversations is just as important as knowing what to say. I think at the heart of all of my searching for and stumbling over words, all of my wrist-twisting and hand-sweeping, I want to understand and be understood.”
