Literary Definitions and the State of Whelm

 whelm - (archaic) v. to engulf, submerge, or bury. "a swimmer whelmed in a raging storm" n. An act or instance of flowing or heaping up abundantly; a surge. "the whelm of the tide"

"I know you can be underwhelmed and you can be overwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?" - Chastity Church (character) in Ten Things I Hate About You (movie, 1999) (Also, Google says the answer to this question is "Yes")

Book club looms on Thursday and I rushed to finish our current book, The River, by Peter Heller, in a lull between yesterday's meetings. Heller's carefully selected prose, his passionate detailed descriptions, served as delightful wakeup call to the power of words, which I've mostly been missing.  In one lovely paragraph, the use of "whelmed" made me sit up and seek clarification. As a swimmer, the example sentence of being whelmed in a raging storm appealed on a visceral level.

Whelmed provides an accurate description of my usual state. The daily roil of life's mundane challenges, four part-time jobs, house and yard issues, and my children's emotional stability often whelms. Since returning from our family trip to Indy for Olympic Trials, where I had one focus, one job, and no distractions, I've been feeling overwhelmed. The raging storm feels heightened by comparison, perhaps even to hurricane proportions.

When I brought up the topic at the dinner table last night, my twenty-one-year old waved my fascination aside. "You said that before," he mentioned, casually spooning a second helping of chicken stir fry into his bowl.

"I did? I don't remember ever having this discussion."

"Well, we did. And you use the word 'underwhelm' all the time."

This interchange baffled me. I don't recall having the conversation, or ever using the word "underwhelm" in conversation with my son. Particularly now, when all systems point toward overwhelm, it's odd that he would say such things. Then again, my brain has been whelmed for most of the past two decades, so I probably forgot.

Lastly, the term "whelm" is labeled "archaic or literary" in the definitions I've retrieved, but a 1999 movie and a 2019 book would indicate otherwise. Google informs me that "whelm" has come into contemporary use as meaning "Neither overwhelmed or underwhelmed." Delightfully incisive, Google. Would we then use "mid" as a synonym, or is that too broad? I love the resurgence of archaic terms and their juxtaposition with modern slang, and wish I could devote more time and single-minded focus to this pursuit. 

Indy for Olympic Trials

The stadium lights went dark except for the red, white and blue spotlights on swivels and the overhead beams that laid a Escher pattern of the Xfiniti logo on the massive 50-meter pool. The bass of the hype music thundered through 20,000 audience members who leapt to their feet as the swimmers in the first final of the USA Swimming Olympic trails passed, one-by-one, under the 50-foot video screen of their images in competitive, focused stances.

The announcer's voice swelled as he intoned their credentials, "USA Tokyo Olympian, US American record holder, USA Tokyo Olympian..." and the crescendo of applause took on greater ferocity with each name. Up in the third tier, surrounded by families of swimmers who had also purchased multi-day tickets, we perched on the edge of our stadium seats, glancing between the pool far below and the 35,000 pound scoreboard that showed intimate, close up views of the athletes and their performances.

At the 50 meter mark. of the 100 fly, the leading swimmer, Gretchen Walsh, charged out to amazing first-half speed under world-record-pace. Even before the announcer mentioned this fact the swimming-savvy crowd had leapt to their feet, screaming for the swimmers to hold speed to the end, to get home. When Walsh touched, breaking an 8-year-old world record by a massive amount of three-tenths of a second, a massive wave of noise emanated from the stands. Non-swimmers in the crowd jumped to their feet along with the rest of us, high-fiving and howling for an amazing athletic accomplishment.

No world record has been set at US Olympic trials in swimming since 2008. The meet is a pressure cooker and only about 30% of qualifiers improve on their seed time. The goal is to make the top two in each event, though at this stage only the winner is guaranteed a spot on the Paris Olympic team. Those athletes who thrive in such settings are few and far between -- and they are incredible.  We got to see many such swimmers, including Regan Smith (who set a world record of her own the day after we left), Katie Ledecky, Katie Grimes (whose family sat next to us in the stands), Caeleb Dressel, Ryan Murphy, Lily King, and others.

As a lifelong swimmer I was moved to tears by the recognition of our sport in Indianapolis. The city raised banners on every street near Lucas Oil Stadium, drew swimming lane lines on the nearest big intersection and in the airport, and hosted concerts and festival-style markets near the venue. The first night set a world record for the number of people at a swim meet and succeeding nights have even raised that threshold. 

We saw 46-year-old Olympian from 2000 and 2004 swim to lifetime bests in her two events, and a 14-year-old make the final of the 400 IM. My family purchased souvenirs and explored the football stadium, waited in long lines for the escalator to take us up to our seats, and marveled that our sport generated this recognition. Aden and I caught up with swimmer friends of past and present, and trained one morning outdoors with the Indy Masters team.

A unique family vacation, an amazing chance to indulge my passions, a wonderful opportunity to cheer athletes on at the fastest Olympic Trials meet in history....all lead me to ask, when can I buy my tickets for 2028?

Abracadabra...We Have a Graduate!

 " 'Abracadabra' is actually from the Aramaic (before Hebrew) phrase "Avra kehdabra" which means literally 'I will create as I speak.' " - Medium

On Friday, Daniel's Literature teacher said kind words about him on stage and then the principal of his small high school shook his hand, handed over a diploma and moved his tassel to the "graduated" side of the cap.  Our family cheered loudly, William's bellowed "Atta kid!" bringing a smile to Daniel's face as he posed for the final graduation photo.

Our third high school graduation brought familiar feelings of joy and pride and gratitude for the teachers and tutors who helped our son along the way, and also an unfamiliar sense of surprise and delight. Far from assuming that this graduation was inevitable, I had many low moments in the past 16 years when I doubted the possibility. In tough times my thoughts and vision would drift forward; I would "play the movie" about Daniel's future, and the tape would lapse, blunt cut ends flapping in my mind.

With its time management, peer pressure, sophisticated topics and group interactions, high school can lay a minefield at the feet of it's initiates. When students layer in emotional and learning challenges, high obstacles loom over the mined ground and a path forward seems impossible. But speaking expectations aloud, "You are smart, you will graduate, we just need to find the right place" helped fuel our collective belief and determination to move Daniel forward.

When I heard Kerri Walsh Jennings say on a podcast that her favorite word is "abracadabra" because it means "I create as I speak" I stopped my walk and replayed it.  We all know that words are powerful and that our brain believes what we tell them, but this "I create as I speak" mantra jolted me into a higher plane of awareness.  Daniel and I went to many classes together and as we drove to and fro, we worked to speak positively about his potential, his ability to do good things, graduate, go to college. And, well - to oversimplify - it worked! 

(It's interesting, too, how familiar the Aramaic spelling is to Avada Kedabra in Harry Potter, which actually means "I kill as I speak" but that's a post for another time.)

I believe more in the power of speech than I ever have and I am trying to watch my words and how I speak about my own difficulties and opportunities, as well as those things confronting my husband and my children. Our brains believe what we tell them and the more I say good things, the more good I can create.