Words I Like: Unfurled

Some words are simply wonderful. "Unfurl" is one of them. As I was walking yesterday into town I was admiring the trees, some with swelling buds but others with tiny leaves already unfurling.  A treasure which has been hiding within the trees is slowly being revealed. Unfurling is not always as slow as tree buds unwrapping. Technology such as time-laps photography allows one to watch a fern frond unfurl in seconds or stars spin about the sky.   With my memory and daily walks a kind of time laps takes place in my imagination.

The word unfurled suggests something moving slowly enough to be pondered at every moment. There is time enough to consider the beauty of what has been and time enough to allow anticipation to mount as the next wonder is revealed.  

Those long swirly skirts on the dance floor are like this. A gentleman will spin a girl about until her skirt seems to float and when he stops her it will wrap itself up with its momentum and then unfurl again back to a state of rest. The dramatic pause in the dance is essential for this unfurling to run its full beautiful cycle and the dance is resumed at just the right moment.

Liturgy also unfurls though not like a skirt. It unfurls in an hour in the mass, in a day with the liturgy of the hours, in a week with the culmination of the Lords Day, in a liturgical season and in a year. With liturgy a lifetime seems to unfurl in an hour, day week and year. It is a window into timeless beauty.

Feathers also unfurl.