I signed up for the One Little Word class, and have completed the first assignment, have found some few quotations I like, and written about poems that give me comfort, just as writing poems do, too. I have read others’ posts that talk about their word, and have been interested in what they have invited into their lives because of that word. The posts have been heartfelt, full of feeling and purpose and inspiration.
My word is COMFORT, and the quote I chose is: LIfe is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things in which smiles, and kindnesses, and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort, by Humphrey Davy. I have since discovered that Davy was a British chemist who is known for discovering the anesthetic effect of laughing gas (nitrous oxide), among other things. It gives me a laugh, not kidding, that the quote I chose was spoken by the guy that discovered the properties of laughing gas. Terrific, quite an invention.
And so I begin thinking of all the things, like this quirky fact, that means COMFORT to me. I have chosen to tie some things in my life to the synonyms of COMFORT in Webster’s Online Dictionary.
Assurance – That the coffee will be made when I arise in the am, that the water in the shower will be hot and that the sun will rise. There is a Mescalero Apache Song I used to read on campouts with my students when we rose with the sun to set off on our adventures:
The sunbeams stream forward, dawn boys,
with shimmering shoes of yellow.