Ethereal.

For some reason the very mention of this word causes a flood of mental images to spring forth.

I say this because in one of my classes, my teacher used the word simply because it demonstrated a grammatical point she was attempting to make~ but I cannot hear it and detach it from its syntax.

I was sitting in a class entitled "Language Develpment in Children" when I was swept away into my own imaginary world. I don't daydream often, if I did, I'd be a terrible student because I get so involved in the daydream as to lose all focus of where I am... but today I indulged myself to let my mind wander where it would.

All of a sudden I am transported into a glade looking into a glassy wood. I say glassy, but I do not mean glassy in actuality. I intend "glassy" to take the place of some adjective that doesn't exist. It is a white world, white and blue and pale green, cold and shadowy and yet at the same time crystal clear. Soon I wander into the wood and place my hands upon the trunks of my frigid trees. However, they are not cold, nor are they rough. Yet not smooth either. They feel as tree bark looks from a distance. Bumpy and catching, but not enough to give evil splinters.
It is a welcoming wood, one that beckons for me to wander there as long as I will, wherever I choose. Fog drapes over the tree branches, but I can see straight through it as though it is merely a gauzy skirt.

It is a world of contradictions that do not contradict.

There is nothing more. Nothing happens in this place, it is quiet, but not eerily so. It is simply ethereal with fairylike ice drops flitting through the warm air. I would like to stay here instead of the real world that is so filled with hurt and pain and doubt and worry. But I know I can't, I must face the reality that is friendships and relationships. There is no escape, and so I run back through the glade into a vibrant world filled with flesh and blood and tears and joy and pain and sorrow and sweet and bitter.