Tenderness.

Tenderness is a word that has changed for me over time.

It used to grate. Maybe I had tenderness about tenderness.

I didn’t like it. It felt too vulnerable, overly sweet, almost overbearing in its rawness. I didn’t want to be tender. I wanted to toughen up, to feel the firmness of clearly delineated lines, the steadiness of clean edges, of knowing where they are.

Time has passed, and now I am different. My relationship to tenderness is different.

If once I experienced it as uncomfortably awkward, now it is another flavor of love with its sudden welling up of joy, and yes, it is vulnerable. It can still be uncomfortable, just in a new way.

It’s uncomfortable not because I can’t handle it but because it is honest: here I am with my real heart, my real love, my real everything. I am ready for tenderness.

I love words.

You’ve probably figured that out if you hang out here.

I mean, I’ve written 1,409 blog posts. Well, about thirty of those are still hanging out in the “one day I might press the publish button if I’m feeling brave” hallway, speaking of things that are tender.

I love words, and I love them even more since having become silent.

Once I used to taste them in my mouth, now I taste them with my whole being. I feel them. Sometimes I think silence has amplified the magic and pleasure of words. Speech now seems like a very small way to access language, if that makes sense.

Once.

Once I had a lover who loved words as much as I did.

We never met. We were lovers in words. We created entire worlds constructed in words.

We spent well over a year whispering words to each other across the distance.

All the words.

We would fall into words, as word-lovers do.

If we were in touch (a word that begins with T), I would ask him about how he experiences tenderness. The word and the quality.

Twisting.

I share words this way with other people too. I have word playmates. TJ. Agent Elizabeth. Anyone who can play. Delight in words is my inheritance.

Word playmates can’t stop at Tenderness.

The other T words would have to come and play too:

Twisting. Tangled. Tentative. Toss. Torque. Tension. Tulips.

Take. Torrent. Torrid. Tend.

Truss. Tussle. Tousled. Tassled. Together.

Twilight. Tilt. Tipped. Trouble. Treble. Trellis. Trill. Thrill.

Touch. Taste. Treats. Timelessness. Trust.

Trust.

Trust is the most beautiful thing in the world.

I am learning about it in entirely new ways with the boy I like.

This is my love-more trust-more.

In [relationship with jealous ex], he never trusted me. And I would think, “Well, that’s his stuff, and he’ll find his way through it, and see what is true.”

I didn’t understand that to be with someone who cannot trust me is not sovereign. You can’t have love between equals when one person doesn’t believe the other person’s words.

Trust is everything. Mine got broken. But here I am, trusting harder, because that’s what is needed.

Time.

I have never liked the phrase “time heals all wounds”.

It is one of those things that is both true and not.

Time makes space. It allows for perspective, and there is a slow, steady magic to moving through life and then discovering that you have a new relationship with the hurting places.

Everything ends, changes, reconfigures.

Suddenly you’re on the other side of the thing that seemed like it would never be okay.

This week I made a list of every time someone in my life has disappeared. Death, breakups, misunderstandings, drifting apart, mysterious disappearances, or not-at-all mysterious ones that made total sense but still hurt.

I put an asterisk next to the ones that still sting, and two by the really painful ones.

Much to my astonishment, it turned out that items that used to be squarely in the two stars category suddenly don’t require any.

So. Time has a wise magic. Time, space, releasing, forgiving myself.

Twice.

Some things just need to be repeated.

You really hear it the second time.

There is something about twice. Twice becomes ritual. Three times is even better.

This is also related to truth and to telling and to tradition.

Tranquility.

I recently came back from 43 days on the road with the boy I like, in the desert and by the sea and in the mountains.

43 days, 5150 miles, 114 hours holding hands while driving in the truck,

We called it Operation Tranquility Recovery Magic. Is that not a marvelous name?

There is a deep peacefulness that comes from horizon and spaciousness, a restfulness that I can soften into and trust.

Tranquility might be my favorite drug.

Transition.

Things are in transit, right now, for me. And also in general, because everything changes. That is the way of things.

Nothing wrong with transition. It’s metamorphosis. Things moving because life requires movement. This is the end of stagnation, and sometimes it looks like breaking when it is really shedding.

Tell me. Tell me tiny truths.

This is what I say to the beautiful boy when my head is resting on his chest.

Well, I type it.

I like hearing his voice. I like being reminded of things that are true.

Sometimes I want to be told about sweetness, sometimes about warmth, sometimes about trust.

There is a tenderness (yes) to asking: Tell me. To listening and receiving.

This is how I get better at remembering to treasure myself.

Treasure.

Where is the treasure?

Right here, in this moment.

The thing I want more than anything else is to be someone who treasures herself, who takes exquisite care of herself. To meet myself with a kind heart.

To be someone who finds treasure in treasuring. To glow boldly, because the treasure is in my heart.

TRUST TRUTH TOWARDS TREASURE.

May it be so! And come play with me.

This has been a meditation on words that begin with T.

If you want to whisper words or sound effects that start with T, go for it. Or we could drink tea. Or listen to the tale of Tetrazzini, something I do every winter.

Other T-words (tea words!) that I like:

Towards Trickle Tricksy Twinkle Tenacious Tea Texture Tomorrow Tipsy Transparent Teleport Talisman Twirl Turning Tough Turquoise Truth.

Oh, and toast — it’s also a verb!

And tango. And turning over. And thoughtful. T is also for Terpsichore, the goddess of dance, the muse of movement. A toast to her, and to all the Terpsichorean treasures.

You are invited to add more T words, or peek over here for more tasty T-treasures. Like tachyphrasia, tangoreceptor, temporicide, and tirailleur.

And of course, if you want to share in any of the qualities and magical words I named here, help yourself.

They work like the salves in the Friday Chicken: there is enough and there is always more.

Whispering loving spells that begin with T, for myself, and for anyone who wants…