Have Words, Will Travel

There are some words so rich in personality and atmosphere they don't need pictures to accompany them. Here are a few.

Aperitifs.

Aesthetes.

Beaton.

Beerbohm.

Blotting paper.

Bohemians.

Brilliance.

Camellias.

Cap d’Antibes.

Just reading them causes my brain to flood with dendrites on a frantic quest to hook up and make high-speed connections. 

Caravansary.

Cocktails.

Country manors.

Crimson.

Crinolines.

Decadence.

Disarray.

Dunes.

Dusk.

Élan.

Ennui.

It doesn't matter that one minute ago I was consumed by carpools and deadlines and grocery lists and parking tickets and needing more cat food. 

Fete champetres.

Firesides.

Fog.

Gardens.

Gipsies.

Glamour.

Heath.

Hedgerows.

History.

Hunger.

Hydrangeas.

Now I'm outside Cecil Beaton's house in the English countryside drinking champagne in a velvet suit. Now I'm running barefoot across a bank of purple heather in the middle of the Scottish moors. Now I'm at an alfresco dinner party in East Egg surrounded by thousands of twinkling lights.

Imbroglios.

Insouciance.

Jam.

Jardinière.

Jetset.

Kilts.

Kiss.

Lavender.

Lilacs.

Lillet.

Loucheness.

Madeleines.

Marrakech.

Now I'm wrapped in lavender-scented sheets at an exotic European sanatarium high in the mountains. Now I'm on camelback, following a long line of dusty travelers across the North African desert. Now I'm sitting in a café near Biarritz in front of a small plate of golden madeleines.

Mirth.

Mitford.

Moonlight.

Moué.

Muscat.

Musk.

Nape.

Novellas.

Operetta.

Opium.

Pallor.

Picnics.

Buddha said, "All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make our world." I find that enormously inspiring. If we are what we choose to think, then all of us can travel farther than any passport can ever take us.

Portmanteaus.

Queerness.

Quietude.

Red.

Rhubarb.

Regret.

Rickshaw.

Ripeness.

Ruffles.

Sheep.

Souks.

Submission.

I have a fantasy that if I lost all my worldly possessions in a fire, as long as I had my list of words, my life would still have beauty and meaning.

Tea.

Thistles.

Turbans.

Untidiness.

Verve.

Vivienne Westwood.

Weald.

Wellies.

Wit.

Yeatsian.

Yielding.

Zaftig.

Zen.

Zephyr.

  

By the way, do these words sound at all familiar? They should -- many of them came from you. In a blog post last year, I offered up my own small collection and asked you to add to it. I am forever indebted to you because of that. Some of your contributions (scrimshaw, turbans, caravansary, moué, scaramouche, brocade, muscat and more)  have woven themselves into the fabric of my being.

Okay now quick without thinking too much.

A word, please.