To create beauty

@toniichilds asked: how ? as in, how do you make words so beautiful? can one learn or?


I literally laughed out loud when I read the question.  Though I have heard the my words are beautiful but I never considered that I made them that way.  But I did think long and hard about my part in making them so.  I know that standard American English isn't considered a romance language, especially with French and Italian holding down the top spots, but it still has a fighting chance.  The thing is because English is the first language for many of us, we don't revisit it often.  We don't invite ourselves to dig deeper into the language considering that we're always speaking it.  We become arrogant with our tongues.  (won't be the first time)  When I started learning French years ago, I started falling in love with language again. The roll of my tongue, the softness for feminine verbs and the grandeur of male actions, I just fell in love and because of that, I started having an affair with words.  The potential to express oneself is exotic in its own right, beautiful by birth and only exposed by the action thereof.  It wasn't until after I learned French that I really learned English.  If I only used words for conversation, then I really needed to have a conversation with myself.  My brain was wired to investigate, to seek depth, value and possibility so I had to find more words and rearrange the ones I already knew.  It was never enough for me that "The cat was black with four legs and green eyes."  But, "The cat had fur dark like the onyx or the black diamond, crushed with the pressure of all colors.  His four limbs marching on like the seasons of our calendar, strategically prancing one behind the other in the succession like kings and their offspring.  The green of its eyes pierced through the night like the emerald of seas, protecting the lands and legs he brushed by," well that's more my speed.  


As for how I make them beautiful?  I don't know if I can take the credit for that.  This will sound crazy, but if you ever see me in real life, I'm usually looking up and to the left.  That's where my words come from and sometimes I'll rush to write them down because I know I should be using them later.  But I guess what makes them most beautiful is that those words become or once were life itself.  They become actions, thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories that take us back to places we consider beautiful.  Words are just maps of where we've been, where we are and where we like to be.  The thought of having a past, present and a future is the true beauty. 


And can you learn?  YES. YES. YES.  Although I think I have a gift, there is still a skill set that can be taught.  I do exercises and assignments that push my gift past its limit so I am always finding new purpose for old words.  I've read some books that people rave about and I think "I could have written this!"  The deeper you dig into language, the more you learn how to manipulate it into whatever you want.  So yeah, this is the best answer I have and by far one of the best compliments I've ever received.


=)