A Javelin to Remember

Is it possible to be haunted by a word? If so, my word is “javelin.”

Could I have the definition, please? A light spear, usually thrown by hand.

J-A-V

Could you use it in a sentence, please? She grabbed the javelin and threw it across the field.

I stood on that stage, a lonely seventh-grader with one other remaining contestant in the schoolwide spelling bee. I scraped the toe of my platform sandal along the wooden slats of the stage while sweat gathered in my armpits as I tried to figure out what the heck a javelin was. I hadn’t been a consistent Olympic watcher in my short, thirteen years on the planet nor was I an expert in Spartan hunting practices. So, I rubbed my fingertips against my temples and gave it a shot.

J-A-V-I-L-E-N

“I’m sorry,” Principal Owens said over the top of her horn-rimmed bifocals. I took my seat and watched as Deborah Hardigan was crowned the Spelling Bee Queen.

My failure that day did not spur me into seeking out the many uses and historical tidbits of the javelin.  (Although did you know that the average Roman javelin weighed 2 to 5 pounds and could travel over thirty yards! Who knew?) No, my lesson from that day was “Be prepared with facts. Always. Lest you die.” At least, that’s how it felt that day.

Don’t worry, I also didn’t become one of those walking encyclopedic types who hurls useless bits of information at people during cocktail parties. (Although, I did once give a rather interesting statistic about lightning to an unimpressed boating party as a storm gathered on the horizon.) Nor did I become a defacto spell checker. I still pause to ensure the correct spelling of “misspelled.”

Instead, I took on a mountain of guilt at the idea that I should have known something but didn’t. So now when an obscure fact is revealed on a movie, say about Lucy Burns (Iron Jawed Angels – a great flick!), I jump on Wikipedia to read more, because, well, I should have known! In fact, I cannot watch a movie now without my laptop or Alexa or some information-spewing device close by.

At work while in a meeting, you’ll often see me with my palm planted against my forehead in a remorseful V-8 kind of moment whenever I learn of a fact or circumstance that I should have known. When at my computer in the morning trying to craft a sentence and finally figuring out the correct placement of that darn comma, I kick myself for not having known in the first place.

For me, these moments occur almost daily, so as a remedy I hoover up facts and information, storing them as best I can in my faulty memory bank. It is not lost on me that most people can shake it off and go about their day without feeling any worse for the wear. But I cannot.

However, as a writer, maybe this curse is the proverbial blessing since it motivates me to search out news headlines for the time period of a story I’m writing. It’s the reason why I research styles of architecture or fashion or species of trees prevalent for a certain setting. (Thank God for the internet!) What is sad is that only 10% of what I research is ever reflected in a story.

So how do I stay motivated to research so much obscurity? I drift back in time to that lonely moment on the stage when I should have known but didn’t, when a javelin unknowingly pierced itself into my subconscious forever. Who knew I could be so haunted by a word?