Here’s to Prospiring in 2022!

Let’s do away with procrastinating by bringing back the verb prospire in 2022!

Barbara Bos is WWWB’s Managing Editor. She lives in a tiny village in Galicia, Spain.

I’m standing in my neighbors’ kitchen, staring at the views over the hills, thinking about Village Eldest, who used to live here.

My neighbors are a lovely young couple, who are renting this house and whose cat I’m looking after while they are on Holiday.

When I say I’m looking after their cat, it is actually the other way around. This cat is looking after me.

I’m not feeling well this week. There is too much going on, too much past that has been stalking me unexpectedly, jumping out from behind the most ridiculous places.

But with this feline in this kitchen, I find solace.

This kitchen is exactly the same as it was when Village Eldest lived here. I can still hear her now.  She inspired me to write a piece about Prospiring many years ago, which is a timely read.

(first appeared in a different format here)

“Wait.”

Urgency in Village Eldest’s voice. I turn round to see her crouched down next to a dried cowpat. “Trae! Give me the bucket!” she orders. For a few seconds I think she has gone round the bend. She’s scooping up the mess with her bare hands. I want to ask her what on earth she is doing.

“You wouldn’t understand, ” she says, guessing my thoughts. “You wouldn’t understand the importance of cow poo. I need it for the veggieplot.”

An amusing snippet of village life: the importance of cow poo. I pondered about it later that day. What one person considered negative, something best avoided stepping into, the other person found worth cherishing and picking up. For the Village Eldest, cow poo was a necessity, essential for her to grow her crops.

From an artistic point of view this made sense. Some of the most stunning art works have negativity at their core. It is the artist’s role to compost it in the right way and use it to create something else.

Perspective.

I came to the conclusion yet again, through the cow poo incident, that it was all about perspective. It isn’t important how things are. It is important from which angle you look at things.

Easier said than done. I hear you. But look at the word procrastinating. Horrible word. Just pronouncing it draws the mouth into a scowl. It sounds crass. To say you’re procrastinating makes you point the finger at yourself, with added dread, because you realise you ought be doing something else. Procrastinating is negative. You have more pressing things to do.

I assume you’re procrastinating right now. That idea you’ve had for weeks going round in your head — you still haven’t written it down, have you? But there is hope. We can do away with procrastinating by bringing back the verb prospire.

It is possible you’ve never heard of prospiring because it is an old word. For some reason it has gone out of fashion, which is a shame because it is quite a nice and useful verb. It hasn’t got the gnawing-on-your-conscience effect which procrastinate tends to have.

The origins of prospire aren’t entirely clear. Some online sources claim it is based in Latin, a variation of inspire, inspirare, to breath in. But while inspire is something which happens to you, prospire is actively facilitating the process, resting the mind to allow for inspiration. Another source claims it is based in Greek,  from spirea, spiral, as in the unfolding of a spiral, the uncoiling.

The question isn’t important as to why prospire went out of fashion. The question is why we can’t bring it back into use. Imagine a world where we’d go on Twitter and we say to each other “Hi, I’m prospiring today.” Someone else would reply with “Brilliant!” Have you looked at this article? Excellent read while you are prospiring.” There are no guilty feelings but more a mutual appreciation for the fact you are both prospiring.

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Barbara Bos is the managing editor and owner of Women Writers, Women’s Books. Barbara was born in Holland. After finishing University she left for the UK. Since then she has uprooted herself twice more, currently living with her family in a small village in Galicia, North-West Spain.

Follow her @chicaderock on Twitter.

She blogs about Village Life on her website https://chicaderock.wordpress.com/

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