Exercises for the Recovery of Childhood

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Revel in slips of the tongue, your own and those of others. Revel not from unkindness, or love of the failures of others, but rather from delight in what the language we use can make possible. If you accidentally say too instead of tattoo, say card when you meant to say far, or say slop making traffic instead of stop making traffic, let your laughter ring loudly and long in the moments thereafter. Do not correct yourself, do not apologize for the mistake; celebrate it instead. Memorialize it as a habit of speech, returning often to its rich display. Savor the malleability of language, loved; savor what slips from its place.