"The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When a secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear."
From The Body by Stephen King
I read that for the first time in grade school, and it has always stuck with me.
The things that are hard to say, for me so often come down to images - moments you picture clearly, succinct and unchanged. You can tell a story, describe the events that led to it, but none of that ever conveys the moment as it was or, failing that, as you feel it.
I spend most of my interactions on fluff - as most of us do, I'm sure. Practial facts, quick jokes, how's the weather?, glad to hear the kids are doing well. I have no desire to be the open wound, or bare my soul to passing acquaintances. However, I seem to have distinct difficulty in moving past the talk of the practical and mundane, to those things that lie behind those moments. How do you make that transition? How do you move past the surface?
Ack. Too many words - already diminished.
