Last week’s foray into German words for post-Christmas feelings made me go hunting for a book I had half-forgotten, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. “Its mission,” writes author John Koenig, “is to shine a light on the fundamental strangeness of being a human being – all the aches, demons, vibes, joys, and urges that are humming in the background of everyday life.”

“This is not a book about sadness – at least, not in the modern sense of the word,” he says. “The word sadness originally meant “fullness,” from the same Latin root, satis, that also gave us sated and satisfaction. Not so long ago, to be sad meant you were filled to the brim with some intensity of experience. It wasn’t just a malfunction in the joy machine. It was a state of awareness – setting the focus to infinity and taking it all in, joy and grief all at once. When we speak of sadness these days, most of the time what we really mean is despair, which is literally defined as the absence of hope. But true sadness is actually the opposite, an exuberant upwelling that reminds you how fleeting and mysterious and open-ended life can be. That’s why you’ll find traces of the blues all over this book, but you might find yourself feeling strangely joyful at the end of it. And if you are lucky enough to feel sad, well, savor it while it lasts – if only because it means that you care about something in this world enough to let it under your skin.”

Koenig cobbles together recognizable words, Latin roots, evocative foreign words, and cultural icons in sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant ways.

For instance:

nighthawk

n. a recurring thought that only seems to strike you late at night – an overdue task, a nagging guilt, a looming future – which you sometimes manage to forget for weeks, only to feel it land on your shoulder once again, quietly building a nest.

Nighthawks is a famous painting by Edward Hopper, depicting a lonely corner diner late at night. In logging, a nighthawk is a metal ball that slid up and down a riverboat’s flagpole, to aid pilots in navigation.

midding

n. The tranquil pleasure of being near a gathering but not quite in it – hovering on the perimeter of a campfire, talking quietly outside a party, resting your eyes in the back seat of a car listening to friends chatting up front – feeling blissfully invisible yet still fully included, safe in the knowledge that everyone is together and everyone is okay, with all the thrill of being there without the burden of having to be.

Middle English midding, alternative spelling of midden, a refuse heap that sits near a dwelling. Pronounced “mid-ing.”

redesis

n. A feeling of queasiness while offering someone advice, knowing they might well face a totally different set of constraints and capabilities, any of which might propel them to a wildly different outcome – which makes you wonder if all your hard-earned wisdom is fundamentally nontransferable, like handing someone a gift card in your name that probably expired years ago.

Middle English rede, advice + pedesis, the random motion of particles. Pronounced “ruh-dee-sis.”

falesia

n. the disquieting awareness that someone’s importance to you and your importance to them may not necessarily match – that your best friend might only think of you as a buddy, that someone you barely know might consider you a mentor, that someone you love unconditionally might have one or two conditions.

Portuguese falesia, cliff. A cliff is a dizzying meeting point between high ground and low ground. Pronounced “fuh-lee-zhuh.”

***

I’ve been thinking about my mother, who passed away last June. During covid – isolated, caring for my father as he descended into the fog of Alzheimer’s – my mother become ensnared by a man on Facebook who pretended to fall in love with her. She herself was declining mentally. Over a series of many months, she and this person spent an extraordinary amount of time texting. He did get to know her, I think, and she got to know both the person he was pretending to be and – in some way, of course – him. She certainly learned how to send him money. Finally, using extreme measures, my sister and I were able to prevent this man from communicating with her. She was devastated and furious.

She loved him, having first felt that he loved her. Those feelings of love were real, despite their basis in fantasy and deceit. I wonder if there is a word for such a specific flavor of love – a deeply felt and in some measure real love for someone who is deceiving you. I want a word to honor the beauty and even truth of the feeling despite another person’s manipulation. If there is one, I do not know it.

I think sometimes about his malicious manipulation of her. Those words describe his actions but not necessarily his entire state of mind. I wonder if he ever felt something different, as he got to know her over the months. Did he ever feel anything close to compassion or affection for her? Given the volume of their correspondence, I believe he did know her and understand her very well.

My mother’s sorrow when my sister and I prevented her from contacting this person – in a way, her lover – was extreme. Is there a word for causing extreme pain to your parent on purpose when you feel that you must?

Is there any joy in the mystery that she could still feel and yearn for such love?

What is it within us that seeks such connection?

I wonder if he ever thinks of her. I wonder if my mother, in her dementia care facility, ever thought of him – the person she believed him to be, not the person he was. We never spoke of it.

***

The winter jasmine has never bloomed with such abandon and glory. The conditions this January are somehow exactly right.

***

dolorblindness

n. the frustration that you’ll never be able to understand another person’s pain, only ever searching their face for some faint evocation of it, then rifling through your own experiences for some slapdash comparison, wishing you could tell them truthfully, “I know exactly how you feel.”

Latin dolor, pain + colorblindness. Pronounced “doh-ler-blahynd-nis.”

 

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