Besotted

When I was very young, my mother read nightly to my sister and me, alternating between a glossy black bible filled with fables of prodigal sons and babies in bulrushes, and a battered book of fairy tales that told of goose girls and trolls. I think we had only the two books then, but they were both thrilling, and filled with wild, wonderful words that made my head spin. The first word I remember saying again and again just for the sound of it — archangel. Archangel. Not merely an angel, something far grander and more majestic. Something powerful. And thus I learned: A word beside another word and another made sentences and paragraphs and before you knew it you were completely and utterly lost in a wilderness of words. And that was a good thing.

3 thoughts on “Besotted

  1. I like your 'word,' Mary. Very majestic, indeed, is archangel. Mine was much less so, 'though no less delicious to me. "Fire truck". Okay, so that's two words, but somehow they inspired me — to song, no less. I made up a ditty in which they were the featured entree; it went something like this: "No-good fire truck/no-good fire truck/no-good fire truck/ repeated ad infinitum. Already obsessive at an early age.

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