Once, in a dry season, I wrote in large letters across two pages of a notebook that innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself.
1.strip
v. take off or remove
The verb strip has many shades of meaning, but most of them involve removing something. Someone may strip you of your power or you may strip off your clothes. Whatever it is that you strip, it’s gone.
Although now, some years later, I marvel that a mind on the outs with itself should have nonetheless made painstaking record of its every tremor, I recall with embarrassing clarity the flavor of those particular ashes.
2.tremor
n. an involuntary vibration (as if from illness or fear)
A tremor is a trembling or shaking in a person or the Earth. If you're scared about speaking in public you might have a tremor in your voice — or wish that an earthquake tremor would open up the floor and swallow you first.
This failure could scarcely have been more predictable or less ambiguous (I simply did not have the grades), but I was unnerved by it;
3.scarcely
adv. almost not
Scarcely means just before, hardly, or “almost not.” If you had scarcely made it to bed when the sun started to rise, you are probably pretty tired by now.
I lost the conviction that lights would always turn green for me, the pleasant certainty that those rather passive virtues which had won me approval as a child automatically guaranteed me not only Phi Beta Kappa keys but happiness, honor, and the love of a good man; lost a certain touching faith in the totem power of good manners, clean hair, and proved competence on the Stanford-Binet scale.
4.totem
n. emblem consisting of an object such as an animal or plant; serves as the symbol of a family or clan (especially among American Indians)
A totem is an emblem or badge that features an animal or plant. Each totem represents a family, clan, or tribe. Do you come from a long line of fishermen? Perhaps your family’s totem is a trout.
To such doubtful amulets had my self-respect been pinned, and I faced myself that day with the nonplussed apprehension of someone who has come across a vampire and has no crucifix at hand.
5.amulet
n. a trinket or piece of jewelry usually hung about the neck and thought to be a magical protection against evil or disease
If you rub your pendant while praying to your gods, it sounds like you have an amulet, a necklace or similar item attributed with magical powers.
Although to be driven back upon oneself is an uneasy affair at best, rather like trying to cross a border with borrowed credentials, it seems to me now the one condition necessary to the beginnings of real self-respect.
6.credential
n. a document attesting to the truth of certain stated facts
A credential is something that’s proof of a claim you make about yourself or your skills. You might earn a credential in computer networking that lets employers know that you’re qualified to do the job.
The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others – who are, after all, deceived easily enough; has nothing to do with reputation, which, as Rhett Butler told Scarlett O’Hara, is something people with courage can do without.
7.dismal
adj. causing dejection
Dismal is a dreary, depressing sort of bad. "With the cold rain and their team behind by six field goals, the mood in the stands was so dismal even the cheerleaders had lost their 'Rah.'"
To do without self-respect, on the other hand, is to be an unwilling audience of one to an interminable documentary that deals one’s failings, both real and imagined, with fresh footage spliced in for every screening.
8.interminable
adj. tiresomely long; seemingly without end
Use interminable to describe something that has or seems to have no end. Your math class. Your sister's violin recital. A babysitting job where five kids are going through your purse and the parents didn't leave a number.
There’s the glass you broke in anger, there’s the hurt on X’s face; watch now, this next scene, the night Y came back from Houston, see how you muff this one.
9.muff
n. a warm tubular covering for the hands
To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, the Phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commission and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice, or carelessness.
10.coverlet
n. a decorative bedspread (usually quilted)
11.irrevocably
adv. in an irrevocable manner
If you do something irrevocably, there's no going back. Irrevocably describes an action that can't be changed or reversed.
However long we postpone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously uncomfortable bed, the one we make ourselves.
12.postpone
v. hold back to a later time
To postpone something is to put it off until later. You can postpone an appointment today and reschedule it for tomorrow.
There is a common superstition that “self-respect” is a kind of charm against snakes, something that keeps those who have it locked in some unblighted Eden, out of strange beds, ambivalent conversations, and trouble in general.
13.superstition
n. an irrational belief arising from ignorance or fear
A superstition is a belief or practice that isn’t entirely based on facts or reality, like carrying a rabbit’s foot because you think it brings you good fortune, or believing that Friday the 13th is a day of bad luck.
It does not at all. It has nothing to do with the face of things, but concerns instead a separate peace, a private reconciliation.
14.reconciliation
n. the reestablishing of cordial relations
Reconciliation is the act of getting two things to be compatible with one another. You might have a reconciliation with a former enemy, or your mom might call for a reconciliation between your spending habits and your diminishing bank account.
They know the price of things. If they choose to commit adultery, they do not then go running, in an excess of bad conscience, to receive absolution from the wronged parties; nor do they complain unduly of the unfairness, the undeserved embarrassment, of being named co-respondent.
15.adultery
n. extramarital sex that willfully and maliciously interferes with marriage relations
Adultery is a word for cheating — cheating on your spouse with another person. Adultery isn’t a crime, but some people consider it a sin.
They had instilled in them, young, a certain discipline, the sense that one lives by doing things one does not particularly want to do, by putting fears and doubts to one side, by weighing immediate comforts against the possibility of larger, even intangible, comforts.
16.instill
v. impart gradually
Parents work hard to develop, or instill, positive beliefs and values in their children. Interestingly, there's no corresponding word for when parents pass down their bad habits.
In one guise or another, Indians always are.
17.guise
n. an artful or simulated semblance
Guise, a noun, is the art of pretending to be something you aren't, like when, in the guise of an invited guest, you fake your way into the party of the century.
People who respect themselves are willing to accept the risk that the Indians will be hostile, that the venture will go bankrupt, that the liaison may not turn out to be one in which every day is a holiday because you’re married to me.
18.liaison
n. a channel for communication between groups
Employ the French-sounding word liaison to refer to a relationship, a link between people or groups who aids communication.
That kind of self-respect is a discipline, a habit of mind that can never be faked but can be developed, trained, coaxed forth.
19.coax
v. influence or urge by gentle urging, caressing, or flattering
When you coax someone, you try to convince him gently, with pleasant words and maybe a little flattery. You’ll have to be patient, as you can’t rush someone you’re trying to coax.
It was once suggested to me that, as an antidote to crying, I put my head in a paper bag.
20.antidote
n. a remedy that stops or controls the effects of a poison
An antidote is a remedy that relieves. So if you get headaches from long bus rides, it's best to travel equipped with the key pain alleviating antidotes: Tylenol, lots of water and soothing music.
