Module 10 Personal Reflection: Ineffable is my new favorite word

The word ineffable is defined as “incapable of being expressed in words” (as opposed to effable, “that which can be expressed in words”). Unfortunately, many of us are absurdly affable with the effable. Ineffable. It feels elegant just to say it. Of course it feels elegant to say elegant too, but there is something about the word ineffable that conjures up those things in life that words cannot contain nor capture. They are so wonderful, so absolutely full of wonder, that they are distinctively indescribable. When we perceive something as ineffable, words fail because whatever it is, is eminently inexpressible. I don’t know what comes to your mind when you pair the word ineffable with your experience. The Grand Canyon? Majestic mountains or the expansive ocean? The universe?

Whatever image comes to mind, let us not forget that ineffability can extend beyond something to someone. My beloved is ineffable to me. The more I know her, the more I know there is more to be known about her. Glimpses of her complex depth and her simple delights, her unquenchable curiosities and unending sources of insight, the way she sees the moon and trees and animals and me is, in my eyes, ineffable. I read recently about a Columbian writer, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who was once asked about his wife. His answer was, “I know her so well now, that I haven’t the slightest idea who she is.” When someone is ineffable, they not only defy description, they are magnetically, magnificently mysterious.

My children, grandchildren, extended family, friends who are like family, and students who are often my teachers are ineffable to me. Or at least I hope I see them accurately enough to realize I am unable to see them accurately enough. By its very nature, accuracy and precision are choices we make to limit something. We narrow it down and condense it to the core until we get to what we think is its essence. When actually, we have only decreased something that was perhaps never meant to be so drastically diminished. A reductionist approach is not effective in understanding the complexities of life nor is it right for relationships. In our attempts to make everything and everyone manageable, we make them meager, nearly negligible, next to nothing. Some of us who are parents have never spoken words more true and more troubling than “Honey, I shrunk the kids.” It’s okay to dehydrate fruit. But dehydrating family members doesn’t make them sweeter or last longer, it just makes them smaller and dries them up.

Ineffable. (It is a bit ironic that so many words have been used in this reflection to articulate that which is inarticulate.) We are surrounded by the ineffable. But just like beauty, seeing the ineffable depends upon the eye of the beholder. Let us choose to see the ineffable every day and in every one. Let us decide to not miss nor minimize the ineffable in the person holding the handmade sign on the street corner or the person who holds our glance, looking back at us in the mirror. You are ineffable and so is everyone else. We began with elegance. Let us end inelegantly, perhaps even indelicately. To summarize: It is time to start ineffing around. Did I just say that? Yes, ineffing way. Uh-oh. I may have just found my second favorite word.