one of the best words i know in my native language is this.
cuprind.
means to grasp, but also to envelop with the arms. to bring to the self, but also within yourself, and as such, can refer to people as well as emotions. or is it that, if i love somebody enough, i can eventually envelop them within myself entirely?
it means to lock within the self, but also to include, to stretch out across a finite time or space, but also. to understand. i've always had a fascination for this, the different nuances inside a solitary word, the same as inside a person. what can i keep within myself?
what is the extent of all the things i'm capable of grasping?
questions, but answers, also.
on the mat, i often reach for the analogy of the shell. particularly useful in forward folds, or holding your knees to yourself. coming inside this inner shell, this cocoon designed solely for the self. and what is it i get to keep here? what are all the things i am capable of grasping?
once upon a time, it was a word of anger for me. a vengeful thought toward someone who had done me wrong. if only you knew all i could envelop. to this day, i'm not sure whether i was referring to the complexity of sentiment that, in my young age, this person had discounted in me, or my own wit. to say to someone, i am capable of understanding all you can, and more.
i was young then, i thought my worth really began and ended inside a stranger's dismissive eye.
lately, i've been repurposing the word to something more exciting, more filled with meaning. perhaps more permissive. i ask myself often, what is the 'all' i get to encompass?
is it the love i offer each day, that i don't often give myself credit for? i think it's a common enough trait, to discard ourselves, and chide our inner person (i'm not sure how i feel about the whole inner child talk, so) for not showing up enough. for not holding space, for being at times too rash. we almost never talk to ourselves about the ways in which we did. the ways in which we loved more than yesterday, were perhaps more patient with our own inner triggers, took a tiny step towards "doing the work".
what can i hold that makes me a better person than i was yesterday?
or perhaps it is, as my young self intuited, all the things i get to hold mentally. but not the wit and the petty bravados i once used to denote myself in the eyes of men (is it a typo or a freudian slip that my keyboard wrote 'demote'?). maybe it's the improved ways in which i now understand that we are a plurality of perosnalities, that my way isn't necessarily the only way, that people might love in ways i find completely foreign.
growth comes, indeed, in clever ways, but it's not typically the ways in which petty men would pat you on the back for.
(i use men, but it can as easily be women. i use men to refer to humankind, which was once mankind, which still dictates in some ways the ways in which we speak, and not only.)
i've grown in the years and months since i last used beautiful words vengefully. i've made room in my soul for more people than i thought it could hold, and what astounds me continually is that they are, for the most part, the right people. it's given me time enough to understand myself better, and hold within me this knowledge that some things seriously hurt. that i am not, after all, indestructible. that what i thought was growing through experience could have been avoided.
that i was, perhaps in a rush to grow up, unkind to myself at times.
that, also, is something i have learned to hold inside my own personal shell.
nowadays, when i hug my knees to my chest, i whisper little words of wonder, but of hope, also, and encouragement. i use these little moments to say to myself i see you, and you have given much toward the world, but don't forget to take, sometimes, also.
'if only you had known all i could envelop'
only, i see now, it was never addressed externally. that all the world could see, and it wouldn't have made an ounce of difference as long as i myself didn't.
it is, after all, tuesday. so i thought it'd be only befitting - in honor of 
de-ai fi-nţeles cât pot să cuprind...
down the years, i've found it enriching, to grow my own understanding of love on this man's. he certainly adds a lot of nuance, a lot of feelings that are harsh and strange and unpleasant, and unlike the love you hear about in the stories.
old songs. this one, always so strange, with that haunting female voice. one of romania's greatest contemporary poets, as it happens, well into her elder years now. what a cool thing, i thought then and now still, to still be doing these kinds of things. very patti.
tu, cel născut din cuvânt
vei cunoaște gust de pământ
vei simți ce frumoase sunt rădăcinile
you, born of the word,
will learn the taste of dirt,
and find how wonderful roots can be
now, if that's not poetry, i don't know what is.
and leaving my romanian behind, this. one of my favorite all time songs. and though nothing will ever match, in my view, michael stipe's version, the searing pain of mr. cave's voice is certainly well-suited for this.
i hear you singing in the wire
i can hear you through the whine [...]
and I need you more than want you
and I want you for all time