B R E E N E D
I thought I would write about another normal aspect of aging that we all experience in the twilight zone, a characteristic that is universal. But I am too happy at the moment to develop it. And I do not feel like walking over to the stereo, looking for a lonesome song like "Where Are You?" by Enya to create a sad mood so I can blog about the isolation of the aged.
"the aged": that's us (ask any 20 yr.old)
I'll write about our isolation later.
But today it is Vocabulary Building time!
I told you I make up words . For real. Here is one I made up about 5 years ago because I couldn't find a word suitable to explain an important verb of life.
I had been out in the sunshine wrapped in a gentle breeze and something great happened to me. I was breened.
I knew it! And I knew the word for it. Breen. (vocabulary comes from afar, as in "up there", you know)
Breen: to put back together
Not every human can experience being breened and that may be why there was no word for it until I made one up (or had Someone "up there" help me out).
You know your body is laced with sinews that keep you put together. And some of you people have such genetically flawless sinews (long enough, flexible enough and with excellent eyelets) that no matter what, you never come undone. You never need breened.
But some of us, especially in my family, come apart at the seams from time to time. Suddenly our sinews are flapping in the breeze and we are frantically praying, "Father, help me. I'm coming apart!"
To be "put back together" at a time like that is an incredibly gratifying experience. It is to be breened!
Sunshine and intimate breezes can breen me.
What breens you if you are flapping in the breeze?
My little 10 year old granddaughter was having a come-apart, a meltdown, tears flowing, sinews flapping when she spied her 3 year old cousin. The dimpled one. The "I love Everybody and Everything" one. My darling 10 year old sobbed harder. "Look at her!" she sobbed broken hearted for her own circumstance. "She will never have a melt- down! She will never know what this is like!! She is a Person of Joy!"
I knew how she felt. We have three Persons of Joy in our family. Good sinews, they wake up happy. Even as babies, they all woke up full of joy, singing. Their names are Lee Jonathan, Gretchen and Yumiko. Oh, they have their bad moments as we all do, but their seams never come undone. They are Persons of Joy.
The rest of us love them. But we don't even pretend to understand them.
Blest they are, but look at it this way: they will never know what it feels like to be breened!
Say what you like, adversity has its place in expanding experience and building vocabulary.
Feeling good,
Riverwatch
