It’s Wednesday,
and that means I want you to learn a new word.
Again, you may or may not have heard or seen it before. It’s not terribly common, but it is terribly
enigmatic – to me anyway. My apologies to Donald Miller and Tricia Goyer for blatantly ripping off their book titles.
HALCYON
As I start
typing this I am right where you are. I
see that word and try to figure out where it came from. Who is it that puts a Y in the middle? Will that make the C sound more like an S or
a K? My mind flashes back to my
sophomore phonetics class and Dr. Maynard Filter at James Madison, “There is no
C in phonetics, only K or S”. Well, that
doesn’t help me much.
I try to
think of when I’ve heard it used or seen it in a book. No books are coming to mind. The last time I saw it was just a few days
ago on Twitter. A group of people were
at a conference and this was the name of the restaurant they had chosen. Again, no help there.
I go into my
mind and it conjures up a vast expanse of sky blue. Not your typical bright sunny day kind of
blue. No this is a more crystalline or
ethereal blue. But that’s just what I’ve
come up with. So, without putting it off
any longer, time to look it up. I just
go to www.dictionary.com
![]() |
Photo Credit |
Halcyon (hal – see – un)
Ooh, this is
even better! I now see why I had the
idea of this blue in my head. Imagine a
clear sky, a light breeze and you are taking it all in stretched out in a
gently swaying hammock. There’s very
little sound. Water on a pond is gently
rippling on the surface. You sit up and
gaze across a vast expanse of lush lawn and garden. Topiaries and urns sit in graceful symmetry
lining a drive. At the end of that drive
an archway of wrought iron scrollwork beckon to those who would enter. You stand up and walk barefoot through the
carefully manicured blades of glass in a winding meander to pour yourself
another glass of lemonade. Such is a halcyon
life.
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Rosecliff - Newport, RI Photo Credit |
Are you still
with me? I somehow pictured myself in the
backyard of my estate that may or may not be like Biltmore or one of the
estates of Newport. I hope I was able to
give you a sense of tranquility, calmness,
and peace. Then, my intention was to
give you the impression of wealth and
prosperity. Finally, I hope you were smiling, feeling joyful or carefree. All these things
go into this word. It’s quite rich in meaning. Would saying that the word halcyon
is, in itself, quite halcyon be a bit too much?
My wish for
you is that you get to use this word to describe your day, your vacation, your
next trip to the grocery store, your home life.
I’m feeling relaxed now and have had a few halcyon moments in an
otherwise crazy, hectic day. Now where
did the staff put my lemonade??
The
restaurant’s website has a beautiful photograph and explanation of the word’s
origin. If you happen to have been there,
l’d love to know how it is. I had to
make myself stop reading the menus. It
was making me very hungry.
I thought it was a color too, and I totally chose K until you taught me better. :D
ReplyDeleteThat's totally what I'm here for. :)
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