indelible

remember peewee's playhouse? on saturday morning cartoons? and how they had a word of the day, and whenever someone said this word, everyone would scream? i'm resurrecting this concept in a feeble attempt to increase my "word power", such that i might someday sound eloquent enough to belong at my current ivy league home (maybe by the time i leave). except that i'm not a scrawny pedophile, i don't have a playhouse, and i also tend to scream at random words like "pipette", "diskdrive", and "it", so it may not be clear to others what the word of the day is. anyway...

today's word is "indelible". according to the OED, it means that which "cannot be deleted, blotted out, or effaced; ineffaceable, permanent" such as a stain, or ink. tattooing leaves an indelible mark on the skin. "indelible" can also be used with regards to character or reputation, often in a negative fashion: "accursed with indelible infamy". feelings and impressions can also be indelible; i especially enjoyed the examples of "indelible" used in this sense: "Most grateful and indelible Sense of a long and intire Friendship" (evelyn, 1697), "I have so many and so indelible impressions of your favour to me" (Donne, 1631), "Such an event makes an indelible impression" (D'Israeli, 1847). these were really great sentences, because they reminded me of why i was drawn to the word in the first place.

i actually heard the word in its adverbial form in a Decemberists song, "Clementine": "and i watch as you sleep / so indelibly deep". and i didn't know what the word meant, but i liked the sound of it, so i looked it up and liked the sound of it even more.

you see, shit happens that stays with you forever. good and bad, literally and figuratively. and this is indelible in action. accidents that leave scars are obviously indelible in a physical manner, but if they're traumatic enough, they'll probably leave a mental mark as well. fear, love, happiness, sadness, close-calls, elating adventures, enticing aromas, foul smells, breathtaking vistas, horrific sights, ear-piercing sounds, and heart-wrenching melodies. anything that evokes a strong emotion has a good chance of also evoking indelibleness. try as you might to erase these blemishes, to wash them away, they stubbornly remain, studding your character with nails that drive deep into your being, becoming part of your essence, shaping who you are, coming back to haunt you in the middle of the night, or while you're walking down the street on a nice day.

indelible phenomena are ineffacable, permanent, there's no undoing them. once the damage has been done, there is no going back. you can try to rebuild the house from the rubble that remains, but once you've shaken the foundation, that house will never be the same. this is especially true with friendships. building trust is a lot like building a foundation. and like a house without a sturdy foundation, a friendship without trust is flimsy and prone to collapse. foundations can be rebuilt, trust can be regained, but it takes time.

yes, to be fair, i should acknowledge the ever-powerful force of time and its effect on all things indelible. with time, the trauma or elation at the root of indelibleness fades. we can face our fears again, and we forget what drew us to something (or someone) in the first place. with each new morning, with each passing day, we take one step further away from the past and one step closer to the future, which holds its own share of indelible events -- the majority of which we can only hope are positive.

indelible. what a beautiful word.