The Final Word

In a recent bestseller about travel and self-discovery, the author experiences a dilemma when she is asked to come up with a single word to describe herself. How do you distill all that you are to its most essential? When I spent a moment wondering what word would most clearly paint a picture of who I am, I realized how hard the job really is. Especially for someone who uses words all the time. One seems pretty stingy and impossible. I recalled a few years ago when I was the caretaker for a child with Asperger’s Syndrome, a condition on the autism spectrum that is often characterized by dysfunctional social interaction, who was so much smarter than everyone his age that the only activity successful at keeping him entertained was for me to come up with vocabulary words he’d never heard before but could use all the time after learning them. One day as he sighed restlessly distracted through a car trip (always an iffy time for behavior issues), I asked him if he was suffering from “ennui.” Fascinated by hearing this new term, even more so when he discovered it meant “oppressive boredom,” he began describing himself daily as possessed of ennui. Even on busy days, he still felt that he’d found his one word. In Kevin Henkes So Happy, a boy, a bunny and a tiny seed all struggle to define who they are and what they want to cure their boredom. I’m still working on my word.

http://www.amazon.com/So-Happy-Kevin-Henkes/dp/0060564830

http://www.kevinhenkes.com/default.asp