Today, a couple of phrases that I noted the word choices within were:
- take care / show care
- draw in / pull in
I’m dissecting how the ways that I act with care can be with fewer boundaries, more onerous and burdened, likely burdensome, making assumptions about what another person, maybe a child or an adult, may want or need without asking or gauging. This is to take care. To show care has a lighter touch, less heavy-handed, fewer burdens, to tend rather than be responsible for.
Then as I was describing how I’m using my voice, describing where I’m going and what my approach is, I started with “pulling others in,” but then stopped mid-sentence to describe how I’m “drawing others in,” as a subtler, less imposing way, more an act of persuasion with someone who chooses, with free will rather than an obligation. That drawing in is an offer that allows someone else to choose consent.
These are semantics, and the words that come out of our mouths are powerful. As D.H. Lawrence wrote:
sex is just another form of talk, where you act the words instead of saying them
washing dishes: a father’s glimpses 