Away

Away. Away for a while. Away for always. A ways away. A way to find a way back. A way to find a way away for always.

What is in a word? A lot. This is important to remember when communicating. Words contain multitudes. Words are legion.

Question: Is "away" a temporal or permanent state of being? Is it a non-physical or corporeal measure? Figurative or literal? Now or forever?

If you say that the meaning changes with context, you're right. Intention is key.

Sometimes, what exists as temporary feels permanent. My son is going away to college. My father is away on a military campaign.

Sometimes, what is likely permanent is cloaked in the possibility of change. My love gave her heart away to another. My baby ran away.

It's the stuff of songs. It's longing and what ifs.

You get to choose how you interpret "away." As humans, we often pick the easiest to swallow definition.

Notice. "Away" always names a definite departure but never an implied destination or guaranteed return. It's a direction that points nowhere — a vector with no terminus — and in that, becomes a vessel for so much feeling. It holds the leaving while the arriving and return remain blank. The mind fills it with whatever it needs: longing, relief, dread, hope. The word is a screen; we project.

"Throwing away" sounds wasteful, toxic. So, let's recycle and compost. That's better.

Waste not, want not. Get a take-away container. But make sure the box is biodegradable.

We go to the transfer station, not the dump. We are visitors to Point A, not B. We manage our waste; we manage what we see. We sanitize.

Pay attention. Words can be clandestine.

Recycling and composting are arguably better than the landfill — but rhetorically, they perform the same move as every other "away." They restore the feeling of having sent the thing somewhere suitable, somewhere fine, somewhere handled and away. "Biodegradable" is a promise about the object's future that we won't be present to verify. The transfer station is not a dump — but really, isn't it? The cans and bins are there, just the temporary holds of Point A. It all eventually goes to Point B, which is just "away" with a final address.

Again: What is it to send something away? What is it to make that exit? Is anything ever really gone? Often, the elected — the accepted — answers to these questions are based on our desires for comfort and perceptions of convenience.

"Away" is an everyday word, an easily — and arguably, overused — one. Away is a word whose entire job is to make us perceive departure without a concern for destination, change without consequence, an exit that exits nothing. It is human nature to desire and perceive the definition that feels most acceptable. As a word, "away" lets us.