What's in a Name?

Shakespeare knows words. He's also wondered about them. They're powerful, evocative, and in some cases, distracting. It's totally possible that you explain something to me using a word that's very familiar to you with tons of positive associations, and I miss your entire point because that same word carries dissonance or negativity with it.

A thousand words

So if words are so challenging, who needs them? Like actually, who needs them? Don't we communicate more with our body language and actions than with what we say? Are your favorite people the ones who verbalize the most precise things or the ones who make you feel good when you're with them? A book isn't an in-person interaction, but drawings of stick figures can communicate body language in a similar way. I chose illustration to anchor and enhance the message of the Art of Loving.

Guesswork

On the other hand, while words can be distracting, so can the absence of words. In the beginning of the project, I actually imagined it WITHOUT WORDS. A preliminary title of the book was "Loving without Words". Once I'd drawn the first sequence to subtly describe these steps in emptying of oneself to make room for the other, I proudly passed it to my brother. I asked him to tell me what was happening on each page. In my creative mind, it was obvious. He paused, he guessed, he guessed again, 'I think he's angry', 'I think this one sleepy', 'this one did something the other one didn't like'. It was okay, but not the uplifting semi-instructive narrative I was going for.

< no words vs some words >

"Together, even normal tasks seem magnificent."

makes a difference, eh?

Unpack it

Plain language is tricky. It's unpacking all the metaphors, it's unpacking the culturally-specific terms that both strengthen groups of similarly-minded people and also make their organizations exclusive. Every time I began to describe what was in my pictures, it was obscured by some umbrella terms, trying to use shortcuts to say what I meant. Ezra, my husband (and friend of more than half my life) was like a metronome in his response. I'd present him with a new ta-da! and he'd look at me sideways, gently, persistently, and say, "unpack it".

me, my husband, Ezra, and our little tyke, Ronen when he was 2.

photo credit: Janine Hair