A ROLODEX rests on a cupboard shelf in my writing room, a slender, tangible thing holding intangibles: words—words captured in ink and alphabetized, silenced by the closing of a clear plastic lid. For those young enough to ask, a Rolodex ( Ro·lo·dex /ˈrōləˌdeks) is a North American trademark, a noun describing a: “desktop card index used to record names, addresses, and telephone numbers, in the form of a rotating spindle *or a small tray to which removable cards are attached.”

*(“or” is what I have)

The name, ROLODEX, “is a portmanteau of the words rolling and index.”

A what?

(“portmanteau” – not found in my Rolodex)

            “Portmanteau | ˌpôrtˈmantō | noun (plural portmanteaus | -tōz 

“1 a large trunk or suitcase, typically made of stiff leather and opening into two equal parts. 

2 (also portmanteau word) a word blending the sounds and combining the meanings of two others, for example motel (from ‘motor’ and ‘hotel’) or brunch (from ‘breakfast’ and ‘lunch’): podcast is a portmanteau, a made-up word coined from a combination of the words iPod and broadcast | 

 ORIGIN mid 16th century: from French portemanteau, from porter ‘carry’ + manteau ‘mantle’.”

For more years than I remember, I added definitions to my Rolodex portmanteau. The first word under “A” is: abeyance---n. temporary inactivity, cessation or suspension.” And who doesn’t identify with THAT word these days?

The last word, “xylograph.” Look it up, then forget it. As I have. 

It has been years since I have added to this collection. Perhaps the last is under the letter “U” where I have only one word (thanks to my Sudanese friend) “Ululate.”

Today I want to add a new “U” word:

            Umwelt | ˈo͝omvelt | noun: the world as it is experienced by a particular organism. 

Fitting, I find, is this word for our current American situation where we have confused Truth as it is, with Truth as we know it. 

Thanks to author, Jared Byas, I am reminded that sound, as a dolphin knows it, is not sound as I know it. I may say, “Ohh, stop! That sound is waaay to high, and the dolphin laughs. High? You have no idea what ‘high’ is! Since I don’t have a grasp on all sound, which by some Absolute means is comprehended, sound is experienced by the limitations of my humanity. Byas notes in Love Matters More, that while a buzzard can see a mouse from 15,000 feet in the air, you know, an easy three mile notice, my eye comprehends the physical world differently. The point—Umwelt—the world as it is experienced by a particular organism, is never the world as it really exists out there.

Phew . . . there is absolute truth, tangible, intangible; it’s just that none of the living things sharing this earth has a handle on it. 

All of us see/hear/touch/smell/taste/perceive/appreciate/remember/interpret/believe/trust/accept/reject/insist/experience our world, and all parts of our world, tangibles, intangibles, including what we humans have done with it, or to it, via progress, politics, polemics, piety, personal preferences, poetic expression, peroration, perdurable pronouncements, profanity, perfidy or (guilty I am here), pleonasms. 

Right. I’ve been peeking at the ‘P’s in the Rolodex.

I’m looking now, under “H,” for “Humility.”