Astonish (v.)

In 1300, there was a word, astonien, which meant “to stun” or “strike senseless,” which came from the Old French estoner—to stun, daze, deafen, or astound. This came from Latin’s ex- meaning “out” + tonare: to thunder. (See thunder).

See thunder, hear lightning, ride air, the wind is your breath, you lift the whole world by its hair. You’ve been dared to run to the end of the block. It’s your eleventh birthday, and the truth-or-dare sleepover dare was to run naked on your own street. So here you are in the just-starting rain, one arm pressed across the nuts of your just-starting breasts, the other straight down to cover your front with your fist. You jog this way. You were dared to make it to the stop sign. The night is all hands, grasping like a mother, furious at this and concerned. The wind in the trees tugs your ponytail. Mean Mrs. Johnson’s porch light pokes your eye. The yellow of the curb where your bus will stop Monday morning curls up in a ribbon to try and tie you to a tree. Your eyes are fixed on the sign and your heart pounds Stop-Stop-Stop, and when you make it to the end of the block, your breath hits the red gong and then: thunder.

The sky is opening up, a slit in the fabric of the night-gone-strange. You turn and your house full of girls is a strobing firefly. So small. They’ve been so mean all night. This was a mean dare. Nicole said gah, just do something for once in your life, you are so boring, so useless. It was your birthday but Jen G. said it was like you weren’t even there. Your eyes are full of sweat, tears, drips of rain. You’re so small in the rain. You were supposed to touch the sign. It was part of the dare. But you need both hands to cover you. You take longer than you should to decide which hand to move. A car appears at the end of the street and slows. Now the night retreats and it’s just you like a butterfly pinned to a black board. You turn away from the car to hide your face, the parts that your hands cover. Like a child who thinks they’re invisible if they close their eyes.

From the car, a man’s voice:

Young lady, young lady.

 

Astonishment (n.)

From the 1590s, “a state of being amazed or shocked with wonder.” Earlier, in the 1570s, it meant “paralysis.”

I was paralyzed.

A different man’s voice:

Are you okay?

I could not speak. His voice reminded me of a yellowjacket, twitchy. I could tell even with my back turned that the car was a hive of yellowjackets, humming with men, their laughter now like stingers. The stop sign a gong: thunder again.

It’s going to rain real hard, honey. Where is your house?

They’re speaking to my back. Their headlights light the wet grass around my feet. They are the headlights, I am the lightning. They are a doctor’s headlamp, I am feverish-sick. They are sun in a magnifying glass. I’m a butterfly and my wings are soaked and folded in the drip-rain. I’m standing, but I’m a beetle upside-down in a puddle. I’m shaking, but I can’t move. I can’t move. Thunder again: BAM. That was my heart. CREAK. That was their car door opening.

Get her, guys.

Astound (v.)

From the mid-15th century, with more of the original sense of Vulgar Latin extonare. The unusual form is perhaps the intrusion of an unetymological -d as in sound and taken for the infinitive, or/and by the same pattern which produced round (v.) from round (adj.).

Suddenly, round me were my friends in their nightgowns, tugging my own down over my head, patting my back, my hair. Round me, protecting me. They were all eleven but shouting at the laughing men to move on: Get on down the road now, you hear? Someone said that, one of my friend’s voices, and she sounded so grown and commanding. And the car did move on. And the thunder stopped and we walked back to my house a circle with me in the center, in a gentle mist, their hands on my shoulders telling me they were sorry, like they were all themselves as mothers from years in the future, looking back on this night, astonished, astounded, remembering how young we were.
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Diane Zinna is the author of the novel The All-Night Sun (Random House, 2020) and Letting Grief Speak: Writing Portals for Life After Loss, a forthcoming craft book on the art of telling our hardest stories. Since 2020, she has led a free Zoom class called Grief Writing Sundays. Meet her there or at www.dianezinna.com.

Artwork by Marvin Liberman