Lately I’ve found myself tossing around a hackneyed catch-phrase in every other sentence: Call a spade a spade. Now, the Online Etymology Dictionary has this to say about it:
spade (1): “tool for digging,” O.E. spadu, from P.Gmc. *spadon (cf. O.Fris. spada, M.Du. spade, O.S. spado, M.L.G. spade, Ger. Spaten), from PIE *spe- “long, flat piece of wood” (cf. Gk. spathe “wooden blade, paddle,” O.E. spon “chip of wood, splinter,” O.N. spann “shingle, chip”). To call a spade a spade “use blunt language” (1542) translates a Gk. proverb (known to the Romans), but Erasmus mistook Gk. skaphe “trough, bowl” for a derivative of the stem of skaptein “to dig,” and the mistake has stuck. The original, then, is “to call a bowl a bowl.”
The irony of Erasmus’s mistake doesn’t escape me, but I think it was a happy accident because “bowl” is so clunky to say. It doesn’t cut through with a sharp s and prominent p the way “spade” does, and—
I know, I know. Enough with the word-fondling. It’s creepy and beside the point, which is this:
I’m getting really tired of everyone dancing around the things they want to say. This may come as a shock to some, since we writers are notorious for adding verbiage where simplicity will suffice. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not advocating that everyone adopt a Hemingway-esque terseness; in fact, I’m not talking about style at all. I’m talking about talking about the things that matter to us, and the way we try to avoid doing just that.
In the past three weeks or so, I’ve talked to at least a dozen friends who are all entrenched in some manner of relationship crisis. I’ve made a concerted effort to talk less and listen more, keep unsolicited advice in check, and open my heart to the hurt that hides underneath the “he said, she said” frustrations or the passionate anger coloring grandiloquent language. But no matter how different everyone’s individual problems are, they all share a common thread: no one says what they mean, and no one means what they say.
There are a million reasons to hide your true feelings, most of which have to do with avoiding loneliness, maintaining the status quo, and fearing rejection. But there’s one truly excellent reason to give all that up and just call a spade a spade after all, and it’s this: your truth is precious, and the only thing you have.
Chogyam Trungpa wrote that “truth always works,” and I wonder what would happen if we all decided to put this to the test. What if we all stopped spewing empty threats and hollow I love yous, stopped using words as filler for perfectly good silence, stopped hiding behind things we tell ourselves to keep from seeing who and how we really are?
I wonder what we would say, and what we might hear.
That is so, so beautiful. One of the things we’ve learned in Yoga Teacher Training is the 8-Limbed Path, one part of one of those limbs is Satya – truthfulness. And this goes beyond not lying, but in meaning what you say, saying what you mean, recognizing when to be quiet and making an effort that when you DO speak, your words are carefully chosen. It’s tough, because we’re a pretty chatty, opinionated culture, but it’s rewarding as I’ve tried to just shut the hell up sometimes and listen more.
Clearly, not in the case of this long little comment, but you get it. This is beautiful, Becca.
Lovely — thanks, Becca