When Words Fail

When you haven’t written anything meaningful in ages and you’re suddenly inspired. 
Here’s what it means.
You have to write it.
You have to express what it is. What it means.
Inspiration never left me. 
But sometimes feelings don’t translate so easily into words. 
The words we have for feelings. What are they, really? 
Words are just a collection of symbols to which we attach meaning.
I wrote about it recently in a note (which  no one read).

I thought it was interesting that the word ‘spell’ meaning to cast magic, has the same source as the word ‘spelling’. As in spelling out a word.
Just think about that for a moment.
When you put together a collection of symbols to make a word and then put this word together with other words you are casting a spell. Your words create thoughts and feelings in the hearts and minds of anyone that reads those words.
You are a magician.
But what happens when words fail?
I have experienced this recently.
I know what I am feeling but I can’t find the words.
In times like this I am often drawn to music. 
Music creates feeling without ever telling you what to feel.
No other art form can do this. Perhaps the abstract painter or the poet can come close. But not quite in the same way. 
I have been watching a beautiful drama on the BBC today called Mix Tape. It reminds me of those heady days of being a teenager when you would compile a tape of songs that meant so much to you and then give it to your latest crush in the hope that it would mean something to them too. 
This is what I mean. As a teenager I didn’t have the words to express my feelings. But maybe a song could do it for me.
Teenagers have so many feelings that can’t be expressed with words. 
Why should we expect them to have the words?
I know I have struggled for many years to put into words the feelings that I have had and maybe that comes from growing up with parents who also struggled, or were not encouraged to talk about what they felt.
My best friend died when I was 17. I went to his funeral on my own. And afterwards I went home. 
My parents didn’t say anything. Not even a comment on how the service had been.
The deepest, scariest most profound sadness of my life was not allowed to have any kind of expression.
Recently I moved home, and one weekend I decided to go for a short walk after dinner. The nearest place to go was the local cemetery. I walked a circuit, and just on my way out I suddenly saw it. My friend’s  grave. I had never seen it before. There it was. Buried alongside his girlfriend and her sister. 
It bought it all back.
Three young lives taken too soon.
Nearly forty years ago. Yet it could have been yesterday.
The feelings were the same.
But I don’t have the words.
How can there be words for this?
We write as an expression of what we feel, yet I cannot have any possible knowledge or control over what you will feel when you read these words. I cast a spell, but I don’t know what effect my spell will have. 
So why do we do it?
Why do we write?
We imagine or hope that our words will land with someone. That perhaps they will connect with someone and help them to understand themselves better. Or perhaps it’s not even that. Perhaps it is a cry into the dark.
Am I alone? Or is there anyone out there who has experienced anything like this? 
We cry into the dark precisely because we want to hear the echo. We know that the echo is just momentary and that it does not resolve anything. Yet it proves that we exist. 
I have the greatest privilege at the moment to be working with three teenage girls. All very different but all having experienced heartbreaking traumas that you would not wish on any child. 
They all struggle to express their true feelings, but act out in many ways that are often destructive and potentially harmful. 
But all behaviours are a communication. 

When she refuses to get out of bed, she is telling you that her bed feels safer than the world out there. But she is also telling you that she wants to feel safe. She wants someone to help her to feel safe.
When she breaks into the kitchen and steals a box of cereal and walks around the school handing it out to everyone she is telling you she wants people to like her. She wants people to think she is funny. She wants to be noticed.
When she has to be restrained from attacking another child who  has ‘disrespected’ her she is telling you that  someone in her past has tried to erase her; take away her childhood. She is not a violent person, but she is a survivor. A survivor who wants to be respected. And loved for who she is.

I have seen it all. These girls don’t have the words to express what they feel. 
I know what that is like, because sometimes when I am trying to figure out what I am going to write next I don’t either.
It’s been a difficult few months since I sold the house I was born in.
Instead of writing I have been listening to music.
Sometimes music just expresses things so much better..

We don’t do mix tapes anymore, but we do have playlists.
What’s on yours at the moment?

I’m not going to give you a whole list here but one song that always stands because it sums up something of that feeling I’ve had since I left my childhood home. 
This song never fails to bring a tear to my eye.

I think I'm goin' back
To the things I learned so well in my youth
I think I'm returning to
Those days when I was young enough to know the truth

Now there are no games to only pass the time
No more coloring books, no Christmas bells to chime
But thinking young and growing older is no sin
And I can play the game of life to win

I can recall the time
When I wasn't ashamed to reach out to a friend
And now I think I've got
A lot more than a skipping rope to lend

Now there's more to do than watch my sailboat glide
And everyday can be my magic carpet ride
And I can play hide and seek with my fears
And live my days instead of counting my years

Let everyone debate the true reality
I'd rather see the world the way it used to be
A little bit of freedom's all we lack
So catch me if you can I'm goin' back

Goin’ Back – Dusty Springfield
(Goffin and King)