The Power Of Words

I love words. I love arranging them, then rearranging them and puzzling for the just the right words to bring clarity to scattered thought. Career choices made since my ill-advised stint in nursing school always brought me back to words. Newspaper reporting, communicating for our local hospital, writing promotion for our fledgling farm were all places I could play with words.

I expect my appreciation of words and how they're used sent the first ripple of concern (that's an anemic word, ripple – it was more like a crashing wave of terror) through my brain when the name calling became everyday in the Presidential campaign of 2016 – Crazy Bernie, Little Marco, Lyin' Ted Cruz, Rocket Man, Crazy Hilary. Characterizing other humans as wacky, lame, psycho, dumb as a rock, even tossing off the comment "such a nasty woman" in a what was supposed to be a debate between Presidential candidates.

On Inauguration Day in 2017, there was no poet sharing carefully chosen words at the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as 45th president of the United States. No Yo Yo Ma and no James Taylor, either.

Then came words like witch hunt, fake news, rigged, and hoax in every day communication from our government and its leaders. We all had to listen to superlatives - tremendous, tremendous beyond belief, big league and its close cousin bigly.

He chose his words carefully to paint with broad strokes, a dog whistle to his base by saying things such as "rip the baby out of the womb" and references to the blacks, the gays, the muslims and the bad hombres and the radical left.

A long history of United States diplomacy across the world was replaced by this kind of rhetoric  "stupidest deal of all time" referring to treaties and we're being "ripped off by other countries" referring to international trade agreements.

The barrage of words culminated in Trump addressing the crowd gathered on  January 6, 2021 for his "Save America" Rally.  "The media is the biggest problem we have as far as I'm concerned, single biggest problem, the fake news and the big tech... they rigged an election. They rigged it like they've never rigged an election before... our election victory stolen by emboldened radical left Democrats. .. you'll see some really bad things happen ... It's a pure theft in American history, everybody knows it... Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us. If he doesn't that will be a sad day for our country ...we're going to walk down and I'll be there with you...we've done things like nobody's ever though possible. .. we will not be intimidated into accepting the hoaxes and the lies that we've been forced to believe ... we've amassed overwhelming evidence about a fake election...we had a lot of eyes watching one specific state, but they cheated like hell anyway ... you have one of the dumbest governors in the United States ... he turned out to be a disaster ... I 'm not happy with the Supreme Court, they love to rule against me...."

And the not-so-silent dog whistle rallied those who have been convinced by this kind of rhetoric, years and years of incendiary language,  that the only solution to these assaults was to storm into the U.S. Capitol to "stop the steal" and take back America.

The words, shrieking voices shaking with anger, spilled down the Avenue, through the halls of Congress and across the land. Destruction, desolation, fear, hate. The news commentators chose the word excrement to describe the shit rioters left behind.

Just days later, other words spoken in those same spaces, were chosen ever so carefully to nurture a small seed of hope, the words selected by a young woman who stood in beautiful dignity as the sun broke through the clouds.

"... So let us leave behind a country 

better than the one we were left with.

Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,

we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.

We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west.

We will rise from the windswept northeast,

where our forefathers first realized revolution.

We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states.

We will rise from the sunbaked south.

We will rebuild, reconcile and recover.

And every known nook of our nation and

every corner called our country,

our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,

battered and beautiful.

When day comes we step out of the shade,

aflame and unafraid,

the new dawn blooms as we free it.

For there is always light,

if only we're brave enough to see it.

If only we're brave enough to be it."

The words of Amanda Gorman "The Hill We Climb"

Tomorrow begins the second impeachment trial of the 45th President of the United States. We'll be once again subjected to these hateful words and the other words that will stand to describe what seems so indescribable.

In the coming days, I plan to lose myself in a different kind of words, reading from the stacks of books waiting for me to lose myself in their particular celebration of  words – "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Bill Moyers' "The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets"; old favorites that I turn to again and again, "Dakota, A Spiritual Geography"and "The Cloister Walk" both by Kathleen Norris, and Madeleine L'Engle's "A Circle Of Quiet." And to truly escape, I have my Colville friend Maury Barr's mystery novel "A Glimpse of Gold," and novels by Joyce Maynard, Emily St. John Mandel and one recommended by a fellow writer in a workshop I just completed, "Empire Falls" by Richard Russo.

What – and whose – words are you choosing?