Through glasses dimly

 Through glasses dimly* 

Uncle Albert on Axel’s dream.
    “You can’t become a mystic by wanting to,” Uncle Albert said when I told him of my conversation with Axel. “If you are a rational human being, you can’t become a mystic at all.” Later he said: “We’re all irrational from time to time, but after . . .” He hesitated. “After age 6, I’d say, it’s extremely difficult to be irrational all the time.” Later still he said: “Even reality-TV characters are at least cunning.”
     “Hokum,” Uncle Albert said. “I was wondering this morning where the word comes from. We made it up, didn’t we?” I looked it up. It appears we did, to describe nonsense spread about to the hokumista’s advantage. Hokum isn’t disinterested. On the other hand, it isn’t maleficent or even malevolent. At least, that’s what I gathered.

The parts of speech.
    Nouns are the names of persons, places or things. Teresa, Avila, cow. Verbs are what the things do or what is done to them. Give, eat. Which leaves adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and interjections. The last is easiest. It’s like saying “Ouch!” when someone steps on your toe. Prepositions link things, as do conjunctions. To, of. Which, and. Adjectives describe nouns. Mad, holy. And adverbs describe verbs. Voraciously. Or adverbs would describe verbs if you were allowed to use them. I asked Roz’s friend Blaine, who teaches writing, why you weren’t. She said, “The idea is that they’re like Jesus when Pilate first encounters him in Jesus Christ, Superstar; they clutter up the hallway. They break up verbs, then offer them crutches when they were strong enough to walk on their own; they were stronger on their own. Or so we say.” By we, she meant writing instructors. “You shouldn't use too many adjectives either,” she added. Pronouns are just nouns by another name. He (she, it). As articles are adjectives by another name. The (a, an).

Mysticism, that mad cow holy Teresa of Avila gave John of the cross, and he ate voraciously. Ouch!

“The idea,” Blaine said: “There must be a verb that in itself means ‘ate voraciously.’”
     “Hoovered?”
     “Doesn’t quite work, does it?”
     “Quite?”
                                                                              01.31.23