I cannot seem to find the right word to perfectly describe this particular moment.
“Words had escaped me again,” I thought to myself while looking at the paragraphs of words in front of me, “and there's really no other word to describe this particular scene.”
The thing I love about words is that they describe emotions, and moments that were once indescribable. Like the feeling of intense longing for someone, which is now described by the word saudade. Or the ambiguous intensity of an eye contact, which is described by the word opia. Or a moment lasting for a very short time as described by the word ephemeral.
Our stories, like the universe itself, is also continuously expanding outwards—to different intricate pathways that leads to more conflicts, more triumphs, and more developments. And as our story expand outwards, we will find words that will perfectly describe all those milestones that we are going to experience along the way.
Some words are associated with feelings of happiness, like the word for happy accident, serendipity. Or the Filipino word for romantic excitement, kilig. Or the overwhelming feeling when we see something cute or romantic as described by the Filipino word gigil.
Then we have words that are just so sorrowful. Like the word exulansis which means the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it. Or when you leave without saying farewell, made alive by the word absquatulate. Or when you don't understand anything, as described by the word acatalepsy.
And finally, there are words that will just leave you in awe because it's just so beautifully made. Like the word balter, meaning to dance artlessly without grace but with enjoyment. Or the realization that you will only experience a little portion of the world in the word onism. And the most beautiful word for me is the Japanese word yügen—an awareness of the universe that triggers an emotional response that is too deep and powerful for words.
Words, they build up the universe that continues to expand infinitely to the ends of nowhere. And within this universe, lies billions of stories so tightly and intricately connected together, and these stories…are filled with words. Words that are formed from the nothingness of our experience, born from the lips of the first people who coined them, and now part of the endless things that describes the universe.
But the problem is, with the billions of stories happening within the infinitely expanding universe, there are still things that cannot be described with words.
And one of them is this particular moment in my story. I've searched every pages of every dictionaries that existed in my youniverse, yet there is no word that describes the moment when time suddenly stops or slows down because of a spontaneous event—like an eye contact, a touch of a hand, or a smile from across the room.
And no matter how much I try to dig the vocabularies inside my head, searching for every metaphor, or any word at all to describe that particular moment, there's nothing.
That moment is certainly indescribable.
I just found myself staring at my laptop screen, at the chunks of paragraphs written in front of me, hoping that a word will finally find its way to me.
But, nothing.
“You look so frustrated, Mr. Cruz.” I turned to see Mr. Lopez, already sitting beside me, smiling. I was so preoccupied with trying to find a word for what I'm writing that I didn't even notice him already sitting beside me in this empty library. “Is everything alright?”
“I'm fine, sir,” I said, gently closing my laptop. “I'm actually more than halfway done with my novella. Your advice is really something I took to heart, sir. And it's giving me quite the progress that I'm looking for.”
“Guess you already met some friends, huh?” he said. “I'm glad to hear that, Mr. Cruz.”
I smiled, thinking of that night with Ethan.
“Yes, sir.”
“So why do you look so frustrated?” he asked.
“Oh, it's because I found a moment that is indescribable, sir. I already looked up every dictionary I know, but there's really nothing that describes this particular moment.”
“An indescribable moment.”
I watch as Mr. Lopez pondered about what I said. And after a while, he smiled at me.
“So, you're stuck with a moment that cannot be put to words. How do you get around that, Mr. Cruz?”
“I'm still thinking of a way around it, sir. Maybe I'll check if The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows had coined a word for that particular moment.”
“That could be plausible, Mr. Cruz. I'm sure the collection of words Koenig had coined might answer your dilemma,” he said. “But there's actually a better way to approach it.”
“A better way, sir?”
“You found a specific moment that isn't described with words yet. You discovered it, Mr. Cruz. What do scientists do when they discover something?”
I stared at Mr. Lopez, bewildered by his question.
I heard him chuckle.
“I don't quite get it, sir.”
“Mr. Cruz,” he said, looking at me straight in the eye like he's going to give me his best writing advice. “You don't need to check The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. That moment was discovered by you. And you have all the privilege to coin the word for it.”
He smiled at me.
“Now is your time to fill that void.”
I smiled.
Mr. Lopez is right. I discovered a word that is unknown to men. And I have the opportunity to give a name to it.
YOU ARE READING
The Dictionary of a Hopeless Romantic Wordsmith (2020)
Romance"There are certain emotions that cannot be described with words. I wish to fill that void." With a novella due in a month and writer's block haunting his very own existence, Andrei must navigate through the labyrinths of the city in search of words...
