The Perfect Word

The Perfect Word....ever give it a thought? Well I have. For instance...the title of my blogland home...I gave it a great deal of thought, I went on a quest...it is no small thing to name something.

For instance Hubert Humphrey went down as saying, "In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be." But who really wants to take the words of a politician? (No offense intended to the honest ones that may exist....)

Names are important, there are books upon books filled with possible baby names...and names are debated amongst potential mothers and potential fathers...some people have names already picked out should they bear children and will freely tell you of them...others will only tell you after the child is born, for many reasons...chief among them once the child is named who would dare afront the parents by scoffing, or ribaldly sneering at the choice of names...once the name is there it becomes the audience's job to make it fit n'cest pas? However, I'm off target and am on a tangent rather...

Tangents can be pleasant, as I feel this whole blog to be...a tangent...or rather a commemoration of the funny realities of life...or at least, upon occassion, my life.

I went searching for this perfect word for my blogland home, something that would encapsulate the place, and my purposes for it...and I remember turning to Latin...but it didn't fit...wrong language for my hopes...so I went instead to Italian. But I've always loved words...loved how they can be the bridges of communication, the absolutions, the balms, the elixirs of joy, the boldness of a moment summarized...the expressions however varied of what we see and what we feel.

Franz Kafka was able to more fully capture how words can thrill me or fill me with dread and why sometimes I find it very important to find the right one or right ones...and how it is a process, not an instantaneous occurance though sometimes I'm blessed by such inspiration. Anyhow, here is what Kafka would say of names of words, "Life's splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come."

So this blogland home and its naming was one of those moments for me...I searched for a way to summon and encapsulate my hopes for what it would be, a snapshot or a picture, a verbal pixellation, Rivelare, was the name, the word I found. Italian in origin, it means, and I apologize if my definition is sparse or slightly off to the native Italian speakers...all I can say in my defense is that on the computer and with a dictionary is where I found it, if you know the fullness of the meaning feel free to enlighten me. Again I am diverting...

E.M. Forester pointed out more succinctly that words have two functions, information and creation.

Rivelare...the informative definition, paraphrased would be: to reveal, uncover, make known, to show, to allow to be seen, to unfold. And in essence that it what I'd hope to create...a place where I take a risk, and share my thoughts, in an unguarded fashion...to allow myself and my random inspirations to be seen, my griefs, my joys, my whatevers...since by nature I am a very private and cautious person...this was a bold declaration--a motto...a carpe diem of pen and page and wit and words...and pictures...

Now if my internet could stay in a functional capacity and be what it should I'd be closer to achieving it and less likely to forget my brilliance, my ephipanies, my definitions or my words...

Perfection then becomes a process, a discovery and a rediscovery...like a poem or a painting that you need to drink from again and again, and still find at the end...a comfort, that it to fit, momentarily...it to be divine, to walk away and know it was right, not distilled by time or absence.