I’m slowly making progress on this work. I still have only a loose idea of the structure the text will take. I am subtitling it A Compendium Of Us. For now, anyway. I will attempt to work more on this Blog as I work on the book. This entry is taken from the Introduction.
Entangle.
I was surprised when I looked up the definition to find mostly negative sounding definitions for this word. For example (hard copies, of course) Merriam Webster Dictionary: tangle, confuse. I went to Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus 2nd edition: bewilder, burden, complicate, puzzle, interweave (less negative), intertwine (better). When searching for a word that somehow grasped the nature of our relationship for a title, I selected entangled, because I understood this word as a mostly positive term. I view our life, my life with Janis, together as something like braiding or weaving, ancient-sounding terms that seem, strong, gentle, loving, and sharing. I understand this is a romantic portrayal, and I am aware that it also has its shortcomings. I also considered symbiosis as a title. However, it sounded too perfect, a botanical-sounding term (“mutually beneficial”) that left little room for the imperfections (not always mutually beneficial) that occur in any long-term relationship. So,in my definition entanglement embodies mostly positive elements, with the understanding that there is always room for human missteps.
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