Precarité

So, Feedburner continues to deliver my blogger emails! I'm definitely NOT complaining, and will keep monitoring how long it continues to do so.

I love Roxanne Gay's writing and social commentary - she's fresh, knowledgeable, and uses sophisticated words, not your common old run-of-the-mill ones. Her use of language is exquisite. This month I read her piece that used a new word for me, which in context was fully understandable, even though I'd never come across it before - the word is

- precarity -

I think I'd find it pretty hard to use in real life, but its meaning is pretty clear - the state of being uncertain, or of feeling precarious. It has apparently been around since the early 1900s, and is based on the French word precarité. She used it to describe the feeling of being able to take pleasure in other (vaccinated) people's company without fear of contracting COVID, as in:

"We sat around enjoying the food. Conversation was effortless, and there was little small talk; we had no need for small things. Throughout the evening, I was intimately aware of the gift of proximity without precarity."

Thanks, Roxanne, this is awesome! We enjoyed a neighbor's-only, outdoor, double-vaccinated BBQ and campfire over the weekend that felt just like that!