0. Intro

Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
Polonius: [Aside] Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.
–Hamlet, Act II, Scene ii.

The gauntlet has been thrown: The word “words” repeated thrice, amirite? But whatever could that possibly mean? Dear Reader, take solace in the words of Polonius in his aside—”Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t”—as we plow ahead. The leitmotif of thrice will, I assure you, be evident by the time we reach the end of this digression.

But mark my word, or words, to be precise: The chosen words—the ones to each of which is dedicated its very own section—have demonstrated value by cropping up over and over in many guises and contexts, going well beyond their call of duty.

1. em dash

For crying out loud, the very first one isn’t even a word at all. But—hold your horses, before you cry foul—this lowly critter the em dash is arguably the go-to symbol for yours truly, amirite? Hey, before your start snickering, gauge my bold statement from my having dedicated a full essay to its virtues: Making A Dash. (Spoiler alert: An ode to the em dash lurks in there.)

2. vision

Where would we be without vision? Vision, oh vision, in all your varieties—physical, metaphorical, conceptual—you sure are nothing less than the mechanism for forging ahead with our lives. You bring fun into our lives, as we discovered to our joy, and that, too, not too many moons ago.

3. write

Oh yes, the right stuff is what this word’s all about. And how does one write—say, an essay, or a book or two for that matter—but word-by-word. So if you will cast your glance upward at the pic of a wall-like easement that’s organically come to be enshrouded by moss, lichen, and company, the same idea had clearly once been at work: The wall was built, yes, brick-by-brick. Famed writer Anne Lamott’s book titled Bird by Bird also comes to mind. But I digress.

4. Finis

That’s all for now. See you next time.

Oh, and I trust that the leitmotif of thrice, I hope, became clear in that—taking a cue from Hamlet’s utterance “Words, words, words”—we regaled ourselves with precisely three sections by the time we made it to the end of this essay, our digression.