EDITING & WRITING SERVICES

What does "Vida de Palabras" mean?

"Life of words" is the literal translation, but the meaning for this editor and writer is more complex.  A while back, when I needed a new e-mail address, I was repeatedly hit with "already taken" messages while trying to come up with a domain name, so I put the task aside for a bit. A few days later, when I was thinking and writing about matters completely irrelevant to establishing a domain name, the phrase "vida de palabras" and the ideas I associate with the phrase kept surfacing in my mind. So I decided to go with it. And you may be wondering about my use of Spanish; it's a beautiful language that I adore, a language into which I occasionally meander during conversation, writing, and—obviously—thought.

"Vida de palabras" holds for me two meanings. It is an acknowledgement of my own life—a life about words, words written, read, said, and heard; a life composed of, consumed by, dictated by words; a life in which words have had the capacity to excite me, elate me, and bring me hope and to break me, anger me, and bring me sorrow. And it is an allusion to the life that words themselves take on. Words can dance and float. They can slither and stomp. And when they combine with one another to move from the lips or pen of one person to the ears or eyes of another, they can cut, mend, widen, narrow, create, and destroy. Words rarely die, and even those that do still boast lives that spanned centuries. They are incredible little beings that we disregard too easily, that we misuse too carelessly, that we fail to respect for their histories, their longevity, and their capacity to change minds and worlds and to affect so deeply when they are combined in just-right form.

As a writer, I revel in finding that just-right form in my own words, and as an editor, I revel in helping clients find it in theirs.

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.

I say it just
Begins to live         
That day.

-Emily Dickinson