word limits

I went to the symphony two weekends ago. A rare chance at cheap tickets, an excuse to visit the Meyerson, and a way of crossing off one of the things on my to-do-before-i-leave-Dallas list.

It was incredible. The orchestra, the narrated piece using Abraham Lincoln's speech, the jazz violinist and her quartet.

And I was envious, particularly of the violinist.

She did, could and can express herself through music, playing with her whole being- sentiments, thoughts and emotions conveyed with nary a word.

I sat there, listening, and I felt the limitations of words. Of how confined they are, how strict in their form, in their meaning, in their incessant need to draw lines, create definitions and clarify.

Music is limitless. Words constrict and impose order upon things, one line after the next, telling a story, making a point. Perhaps poets operate outside of this feeling of constraint. But as a journalist, a writer, a student, music feels limitless in ways that words are not.

I love words. I have always loved words and languages. I just finished spending the past 17 years of my life thinking about how sentences can be formed and verbs conjugated and ideas expressed through words. Words, used wisely and with creativity, can tell incredible stories and evoke fierce emotions.

But I was envious. Envious of this violinist and her freedom to speak without uttering or writing a word. Without clinging to the concrete nature of the spoken and written word.

This weekend Katie and I made salteñas. One of our favorite (and more complicated) Bolivian foods, we have waited almost two years to attempt them. In cooking salteñas we brought back a piece of our time in Cochabamba, a moment with our host family, a walk through the city, the mountains, our friends, our work.

Words are not always enough. Sometimes it's food that reminds us- a taste of memories. Sometimes it's music that frees us. Sometimes it's silence and stars.

Words are a part, but not all. In prayer, in conversation, in remembering, in living. Sometimes they are the beginning, the middle, the end- but they never fully encapsulate all that there is to know.