It was Rally Q, and it was quite-quite many things, and Q is a special letter for me.

I have a very clear memory of learning Q in kindergarten.

Well, I already knew how to read so the learning-the-letters part of kindergarten was kind of boring, but Q! I remember admiring the glorious swirl of it, and being fixated on the page in the book with the drawing of the queen.

In my mind this memory is tied up with the day someone painted a swastika on the wall of the school, and they took us away while it got painted over or blasted off. It might not have been the same day. Memory is a funny-odd thing, such a funny-odd thing, but if I think about Q, I think about that day and I see Q in the book. That is my memory of Q.

Two of my favorite words begin with Q:

Queen.

And: Quiet.

The relationship between quiet and queenliness.

This is something I knew about before I ever knew about it, and it takes us to the labyrinth, another story of memory.

There is a stone in the deck of Stone Skipping cards that asks: “What is the connection between rest and sovereignty?”

It is there to remind me about the labyrinth in Taos, which revealed to me, in a way that was remarkably clear:

Being the loving, compassionate, playful, creative, responsible adult in charge of the kingdom of my life requires taking exquisite care of myself.

I take care of myself and give myself restful experiences because it is kind, and needed. And also so I can get quiet enough to hear the wise steady internal voice telling me what to pay attention to, what I need, and what’s next.

When I’m not quiet inside, I can’t hear. And I need to hear to be a bell.

The queen of getting quiet.

There are not a lot of Q words, but they have heft.

At Rally Q, Elizabeth and I made a compass that was a sentence that was a spell, wrapping around into itself like a snake whose tail is tucked into its mouth.

I am the queen of qualities.

I am the queen of qualities with a quill on a quest of quiet, queuing up what I want quickly to quench my need to be the queen of qualities.

The queen of qualities with a quill of qualities on a quest of quiet qualities, queuing qualities, for quickness of quality-quenching.

Then we realized we forgot about Queerness (how do you forget that?!), so we put it in the center and let it radiate out to meet the other points.

We left a word out too.

Quirky. I dislike that word, and so does Elizabeth, probably because it gets applied to both of us all the time. So we left it out of the compass, intentional neglect.

Quirky to me comes off as apologetic, apologizing for something I don’t think requires apologies. It’s the word people use in social media. “You’ll like Havi — though, just so you know, she’s pretty quirky…”

Translation: “Even though Havi is a giant weirdo and I feel slightly uncomfortable admitting that I like her work, I am telling you about her but don’t hate me when you find out how weird she is.”

I also hear quirky as “needs to settle down and get serious”.

And Elizabeth hears quirky as “yeah we actually aren’t going to pay you” and “if a man had done this we’d say it was brilliant, creative and inspired, but because it’s you, we’ll call it quirky”.

Not our word. Maybe it’s your word though. People vary! Feel free to adore quirkiness as much as you like.

The funny thing is, I do like quirkiness. That is: I like playfulness and eccentricity and doing what you want. I like the sound of the word, with its fun kicky K in the middle.

I just have less than fun associations with it as a label that gets applied to me.

Quill.

Quill surprised me as being a word I like more than I realized before the week of Q (and the week of Queue).

Quill is:

Magic. Writing. Spells. Process. Wand. Muse. Of the earth. Inspiration. Conviction. Conjuring. Play. Invoking. Scrolls. Sharpness. Deepening. Mystery. Story. Power.

I am really liking quill.

Other quite wonderful Q words.

Quickening. Quote. Quixotic. Quizzical. Queer. Quest and Questing. Questions. Query. Quite. Quotable. Quilt. Quiz. Quip. Quintessential. Quatrain. Query. Quince. Qaqortoq, in Greenland, where I found an excellent clue and made friends with a very sweet puppy. Quintessential. Quoz.

That last one is from my favorite book: Ounce Dice Trice, a must if you, like me, are someone who takes immense pleasure in what Nick calls the taste of words.

And peek over here for more Q-filled delights. Like quadrennium, quantophrenia, quingenarious, and quisquilious.

May it be so! And come play with me.

Thank you, letter Q.

If you want to whisper words or sound effects that start with Q, go for it.

If you want to share in any of the qualities and magical words I named here, you can.

They work like the salves in the Friday Chicken: just take some, there is always more.

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