Monday, 29 August, 2022 – They are in Newquay, England. I am going to post more about the place, when I have a chance to look it up. Elias sent pictures today. He looks so good, so happy to be with his friends in a beautiful, new place. I want to say I miss him but that is not quite right. I am not sure what the word is; I do not want him to be anywhere than where he is, but I also want to reach out and hug him and tell him how proud of him I am.
(This will seem like a non sequitur but it is not.) I listened to a podcast episode yesterday about how negative American media is. Even the most nonpartisan media outlets have difficulty not characterizing events; they don’t simply describe anything without injecting some sort of hyperbole or judgement. The experts talked about the American vernacular, in particular and the English language, in general. We have so many words for bad things, encapsulated in one single word: lie, murder, oppress. But good things, positive things, require more than one word to capture their meaning: tell the truth, save a life, not oppressive – that doesn’t sound right but I can’t think of the opposite of oppress.
Anyway, the point is – and I do have one – too often, my vocabulary is inadequate to describe so many of the good things I feel, particularly as a mother. I sort of get close but I never feel I get it quite exactly right. So, there it is: I miss Elias. I also don’t miss him, because he is right where he should be.
