Hiking in the Yosemite high sierra last month gave pause for thought, along with time to sync with the seasons, swim in waterfalls and watch friends construct simple-yet-incredible balancing rock sculptures.
We started talking about how to spend a summer afternoon in nature. ”Whittling” was immediately mentioned: whittling time, whittling wood (for a walking stick of course), whittling an idea, or even whittling one’s waistline.
It has a beautiful sound. And it got me reflecting on favorite verbs — in English only, as a list of melodious Italian or Spanish words would go on forever.
Whittle and weave are two of my favorite, complementary verbs. According to Merriam-Webster:
- Whittle means “to cut or shape something by or as if by paring it with a knife; to trim or pare down.” It also can mean “to wear oneself or another out with fretting.” (I guess I don’t like the latter definition so much.)
I also found a fun saying: He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.
- Weave means “to interlace especially to form a texture, fabric, or design; to produce by elaborately combining elements; to direct (as in the body) in a winding or zigzag course, especially to avoid obstacles.”
It comes from Latin for web, also related to networks, which makes perfect sense. One can weave a story, fabric, weave through time, and weave a wonderful life rich with a network of community, experiences and friends.
Whittling is about honing in on what’s essential, meaningful and purposeful. Weaving is about taking those essential parts and blending them together in a tapestry or mosaic or story or journey, such that the sum — and beauty — of the threads together is greater than their individual parts.
May each of us weave and whittle a better life each day!
Photograph Credit by Jeff Sullivan/Getty Images
April Rinne was born in San Francisco and raised in the Bay Area and
Colorado, and has been a traveler for as long as she can remember. Most of her early adventures were in national parks and included hiking, camping and orienteering rather than museums or far-flung international locales.
She double majored in International Relations at Emory University and Italian and minored in Art History. She also spent a year as a visiting student at University College in Oxford, England, where she followed self-created courses in garden architecture and European identity.
She returned to Italy on a Fullbright Scholarship and spent a half of each year researching and guiding hiking and biking trips for Butterfield & Robinson and the other half of the year globetrotting. Her work and travels took her throughout Europe, Central and South America, India, Southeast and East Asia and North Africa.
April has traveled to 49 of the 50 United States (missing Hawaii) and 76 foreign countries to-date. This was also the phase when she began to write travelogues – “April’s Notes from the Road” – and shared them with friends and family via email, before blogging really took off. She did a joint degree in law and international development finance from Harvard Law School and got an M.A. in International Finance from The Fletcher School.
