Tag: words

idlewild – adj. feeling grateful to be stranded in a place where you can’t do much of anything, which temporarily alleviates the burden of being able to do anything at any time and frees up your brain to do whatever it wants to, even if it’s just flickering your eyes across the passing landscape.

I get to do this regularly. I’m often stranded in planes, trains, cars, etc. where I can’t do anything. Even in airports. Certainly I could work in some of those situations, but I also recognize the fatigue I feel and the need to relax and try to take care of myself.

The drive from LHR to Cambridge is a little over 2 hours (sometimes more). When I get a car, and I’m not too tired, I can sit and watch the world go by. Sometimes thinking of things, sometimes letting thoughts just flip through my head.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

fitzcaraldo – n. a random image that becomes lodged deep in your brain – maybe washed there by a dream, or smuggled inside a book, or planted during a casual conversation – which then grows into a wild and impractical vision that keeps scrambling around in your head, itching for a chance to leap headline into reality.

I feel this most often with projects around the ranch. I’ll get an idea to build something, usually to make my life easier, but sometimes as a work of art, and in my mind, I’ll think about the exotic woods, the clever design, the neat ways to fasten things.

Then I realize that I can’t find time for many of the more practical things I’d want to do. I’ll never get to most of my ideas.

Maybe, however, I’ll tackle one or two. We’ll see. For now, lots of fitzcarraldo in my head.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Ozurie – feeling torn between the life you want and the life you have.

I think many people feel ozurie often. I certainly had a lot of this in my younger years. I’d see the success, the partners, the adventures, the experiences others had and I felt torn. I wanted to change my life.

Today I don’t feel this. Perhaps It’s growing older and more settled, perhaps it’s appreciating the blessings and fortune I have had. My life is really amazing. Even the things that don’t go well, like broken planes or weather damage at the ranch, or a lack of sleep because of commitments are minor issues. I think this is beyond the life I wanted and I have it.

I hope you find that, too.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

exulansis – n. the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it – whether through envy or pity or mere foreignness – which allows it to drift away from the rest of your story, until it feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog, no longer even looking for a place to land.

I try to avoid exulansis in my verbal stories, but I know it doesn’t always work. I actually ran into this recently while traveling to a volleyball tournament as a coach. I wasn’t talking with a player, but rather a parent, talking a bit about my fatigue and challenges. On the 22nd of June, as I chatted about life, I realized I’d only been home for 7 days that month.

This parent was a lawyer, primarily working in Denver and rarely traveling for work. They took vacations, but those tend to be spread out, where as this trip was my 4th of June. I realized as I tried to talk about the experience of crossing time zones and the world back and forth that this person couldn’t relate and my point was being busy and needing to catch up on chores, as well as dragging a bit at the tournament. The travel experiences across time zones weren’t really something that they could relate to.

Interestingly enough, another parent heard and asked me for some tips, as they were about to embark on 3 cities in 3 weeks for work. They didn’t have exulansis from my story.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows