The burn of exploration: a footstep in a field of snow, a prism rainbow on the palm.
A wash of sadness: water colors dripping, a blue hole, a long rain.
Wonder unfolding: a letter from a beloved, a butterfly drying, a kite
Your turn, reader! How do you "see" emotions?
Possible answers to your question!
ReplyDeleteWonder unfolding: a formless pale blue, with an auditory sensation: the first few notes of "Paradis: La chanson d'Eve" by Gabriel Fauré.
Sadness: a starkly bright room in a college dormitory on a stridently sunny afternoon of a long-gone December.
Romantic love: the remembered and much-beloved face of someone from whom one became suddenly sundered.
Joy: a prodigious white snow seeming to blossom from the otherwise bare branches of old black trees, in early winter; or, brilliant blazing fall foliage in late October.
Nostalgia (1): another room, the bedroom that was mine from 1975-87, with barely enough room for bed, clock, television, books; time of day, early morning, dawn, after a sleepless night of watching old movies on UHF television.
Awareness of God's love (not an emotion exactly, but bear with me!): the #15 bus going through Dudley Square en route to the inner-city church staffed by two ebullient, battle-scarred, indefatigable priests (the church where I encountered possibly the happiest human being who ever lived, a diminutive, perpetually smiling Irish-American nun who died well into her 90s!).
Contentment: The room where I am sitting now, with laptop and coffee.
Youthful exploration: the subway (called the MBTA or simply "the T" in Boston); with auditory accompaniment probably from the 1970s version of Bruce Springsteen: "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City."
Nostalgia (2): any bookstore in Harvard Square that existed in the 1980s (so many are now defunct! one could recite their names as some kind of litany or anamnesis: Reading International; the Book Case; Starr's; WordsWorth; McIntyre and Moore's, etc.). But Harvard Book Store, with its basement full of used books, is still there!
Oh, thank you, Thomas D.! These are fascinating. I wish I knew more about the Irish-American nun.
ReplyDeleteOh, Sister Mary Matthias was absolutely amazing! Usually garbed in a blue sweater, wearing a modest but noticeable cross -- and a firm believer in hugs! Perhaps four foot ten, and with a smile that could cure the most intransigent depression! She was at least eighty when I met her. In fact, she was old enough to have met Katharine Drexel, the canonized foundress of her order of nuns.
DeleteI was pressed to describe Sister Mary Matthias on one occasion. I thought for a moment before saying, "She's a day-brightener!" And someone who merits a far better eulogist than myself, who knew her only slightly and briefly. May the perpetual light shine upon her, who afforded us a true glimpse of that light while she walked among us.
What a wonderful woman! Thank you for sharing a bit of her life here.
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