Words words words

Herself still has the box of vocabulary words that her mother gave her in high school to study for the SAT.  While many of the words seem commonplace (metamorphosis, scurry, rationalize, placid, corpulent, prolific), others are a bit unusual (calumny, sedulous, extirpate, shibboleth).  She'd like to review the whole box. There must be some in there that she has not yet learned or has forgotten. Marvelous unusual words waiting to be used.

Strange to think, though, that with all those words at her disposal, she still somehow cannot find the right ones on occasion. Odd. 

Perhaps she is erroneously looking for complex words. 

One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple. - Jack Kerouac

Or perhaps there are not big enough words.

All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind. - Kahlil Gibran

Or perhaps there are things that cannot be said, and so the words hide deep within.

One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter. - James Earl Jones

Or, perhaps, some things are meant to be experienced without reducing them to words.  For how can one possibly describe all that is felt in an instant -- the reaching of the mountaintop; the sensing of another's triumph or sorrow; the human yearning for places, people, moments in time past or in future yet unseen.  These things cannot be frozen into words.  They can solely happen.

In the erstwhile, though, we do have some wonderful words.  The best ones, I think, are those that make us laugh.