A new word
This evening I simply have a new word to share. An old Scottish word.
Glisk - a glitter of sunlight; a glow of heat from a fire; a glint or twinkle in a person's eye. Figuratively, a glimpse of the good, a brief burst of warmth or hope. (Scots, esp. Shetland; archaic)
I think it originally came from the twitter feed of one @RobGMacfarlane. I do like that. It's not too dissimilar to a glimpse or a glint, though there seems to be a little extra. From this google book: ' ... the glisk is a subtle sensation: a slight touch of pleasure or twinge of pain that penetrates the soul and passes quickly away.' It's not altogether unlike the stabs of Sehnsucht that CS Lewis describes in 'the longing for that unnameable something, the desire for which pierces us like a rapier at the smell of a bonfire, the sound of wild ducks flying overhead, the title of The Well at the World's End, the opening lines of Kubla Khan, the morning cobwebs in late summer, or the noise of falling waves'. Writing of glisks, I took a load of cleaned-out stuff to the op-shop where my Aunt works and, this was not in the plan at all, but I came home with something else. I found this vintage plywood jigsaw in an old gold box for a few dollars. Its challenge was that it didn't have a picture. On the weekend I thought I'd just see whether all the pieces were in it as I was putting it away (cause you know, the life changing magic of tidying up and all), only it also didn't tell you on the box how many pieces there were meant to be, so I started to make it then and there on carpet, got a little obsessed in the suspense of the unfolding scene, and hours of my life went by. Above is that jigsaw. I'm quite quite taken with it. It whispers to me of Cair Paravel, of a rest stop in the foothills of Paradise, of a place Much Afraid might have reached in the heights of Hind's Feet in High Places. And there are blue flowers in abundance.
