Valence

My birthday is coming up, and for the first time in my adult life, I’m actually throwing a party.  A big party, where I’m inviting all my friends, all the people I like and hold dear.  At least all the ones who are in the NYC area and could reasonably attend.  This means getting everyone's emails...

I culled together my gmail acct, synced with my phone, and tried to get any remaining emails on fbook.   The total is somewhere around 130.  That sounds about right.  An article in The Times UK reports that evolutionary anthropologists studied the number of meaningful relationships humans can have.  ‘Dunbar’s Number’ describes this theory, and sets it at about 150 people. (Who am I leaving out!?)

The number of bonds an atom has, or can form, with other atoms is referred to as its valence.  In linguistics, they appropriated the term from chemistry to attribute the number of arguments a verb can have.  Because the term is so useful, linguists delineated between syntactic valency (as above), and semantic valency (the number thematic relations a verb can have).

Dunbar’s Number is just another way of describing ‘social valency.’  I like this word very much for its utility, and I use the word in this form, ‘valence of meaning.’  This construction allowed me to appreciate ambiguity in literature (and life).  I would often get frustrated that passages wouldn’t just say, this is this, or that is that.  I felt that because it was ambiguous, the lack of specificity meant I couldn’t interpret things any which way.  With ‘valences of meaning,’ it can have multiple interpretations at the same time.

Starting out as a scientific term, valence revealed itself to be a universal concept.  I think it’s fitting that its Latin root, valentia, means strength and capacity; both allow it to insert itself into new contexts.  It’s as though the meaning of the word contains itself, within itself.  Now, what’s the word for that?

Expiate

I was inspired by Yourcenar's book, "Alexis." It's a (staggeringly beautiful) letter from a man who is apologizing to his wife for leaving her because he's gay. Only the book was written in 1928, he couldn't speak directly about it; they didn't have the vocabulary we have today. So the whole novel is about how he must pursue his other loves. The rumor (disproven) was that Yourcenar's husband had left her under similar circumstances, and this was the apology letter she never received. Even though it's not true, I feel that this act of writing your own perfect apology letter is profound.

When I graduated college, I had this idea for a play where community members would meet for a ritual of renewal. The librarian assumed the role of Medea, the journalist attempts Alexander the Great, and the bookstore owner tries Marguerite Yourcenar. The crux of the play was that half-way through the ritual, the bookstore owner decides she needs to get Medea to forgive Jason instead of murdering her children. Betrayal vs Forgiveness.

The premise was that 'forgiveness permits transformation.' Only, I wanted a stronger word for forgiveness. I wanted the word for divine forgiveness, profound forgiveness, the quality of forgiveness that permits wild transformation. I have since found its sister words: exoneration, atonement, absolution, expiation.

I first came across expiate while reading Christa Wolf's "Medea Voices." Medea meets with her aunt Circe to expiate for the blood guilt of her brother Apsurtus's death. Wolf had a different take on the myth and perhaps that's why I find the word intriguing. Growing up Catholic might also explain my affinity for words that purge guilt. The word I want may exist and I simply haven't come across it yet. It's also possible that we are still talking around the word, that we haven't developed that vocabulary yet. And so, for the meantime, expiate.