Why Metaphorward?
“She asked me, ‘Do you always speak in metaphors?’”
This is one of my mom’s favorite stories to retell. Hearing it made me realize my way of thinking and speaking in parallels comes from my mom, when like a fool, I’d thought I was unique.
“So I told her, ‘Well, a metaphor is like a diving board,’” my mom says next, her gaze sliding away from your face and into the past she’s reenacting. She pauses, relishing her own punchline: “‘It helps you get a little deeper.’”
My mom is right about so many things: the hilarity of using a simile when accused of metaphor overload. The utility of pointing out parallels when straightforward description fails to explain what something feels like. The joy of passing on a good one to as many people as possible.
In that spirit, I’m starting Metaphorward to share a metaphor every Sunday. It could be pulled from a story I’ve written or from someone else. Like my mom’s diving board, I may depart from true metaphors to use other figurative language, from simile to synecdoche, to help pin down the way that something feels.
I’m rounding up the metaphors because I love them, but also because I think they point us, like a divining rod, to something important and squishy and fundamentally human. Let’s jump in.
Join me!
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Onward. Metaphorward.
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