Most times I forget…

that it’s okay to feel hurt–

I don’t tell myself that it’s ‘not okay,’

it just seems that ‘hurt’ isn’t even an option…

Krauss would call me archaic.

“The Birth of Feeling” : The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss.

“Feelings are not as old as time. Just as there was a first instant when someone rubbed two sticks together to make a spark, there was a first time joy was felt, and a first time for sadness. For a while, new feelings were being invented all the time. Desire was born early, as was regret. When stubbornness was felt for the first time, it started a chain reaction, creating the feeling of resentment on the one hand, and alienation and loneliness on the other. It might have been a certain counterclockwise movement of the hips that marked the birth of ecstasy; a bolt of lightning that caused the first feeling of awe. Or maybe it was the body of a girl named Alma. Contrary to logic, the feeling of surprise wasn’t born immediately. It only came after people had enough time to get used to things as they were. And when enough time had passed, and someone felt the first feeling of surprise, someone, somewhere else, felt the first pang of nostalgia.

It’s also true that sometimes people felt things and, because there was no word for them, they went unmentioned. The oldest emotion in the world may be that of being moved; but to describe it– just to name– must have been like trying to catch something invisible.

(Then again, the oldest feeling in the world might simply have been confusion.)

Having begun to feel, people’s desire to feel grew. They wanted to feel more, feel deeper, despite how much it sometimes hurt. People became addicted to feeling. They struggled to uncover new emotions. It’s possible that this is how art was born. New kinds of joy were forged, along with new kinds of sadness: The eternal disappointment of life as it is; the relief of unexpected reprieve; the fear of dying.

Even now, all possible feelings do not yet exist. There are still those that lie beyond our capacity and our imagination. From time to time, when a piece of music no one has ever written, or a painting no one has ever painted, or something else impossible to predict, fathom, or yet describe takes place, a new feeling enters the world. And then, for the millionth time in the history of feeling, the heart surges, and absorbs the impact.”

this week’s goal:

write down all of my grandmother’s stories.

i don’t like the anxiety that comes with ‘lists of things to do,’ but here are some things that would be nice:

find my favorite word
find my favorite Tree (a specific Tree in a specific place)
win an award for writing
build a model town and train set
own a dog of my very own
own a Tree-house
visit Abruzzo, Italy, where my Nonni grew up
visit Germany
visit Ireland
visit New York City
visit Egypt
complete an Art piece
have a collection of clocks
start a literary journal
relearn Chemistry
relearn Algebra
learn about Paleontology
learn how to carve wood
learn how to read braille
learn more German
learn about the history of Black Magic
learn more about Cryptozoology
be an expert yogi
go to a dinosaur museum
write a novel
write a play
write a musical
write a movie script
write a graphic novel
finish a chapbook of writing
be published in a literary journal
see the Ocean floor
bake cookies from scratch
camp in a Forest all by myself
drive a motorcycle
scream at the top of my lungs into a giant chasm
have a garden
learn more about the Classics/Classical history
read a Greek epic
read a Roman epic
learn a magic trick
send more letters by snail-mail
have a grand romance
run a tea and coffee hangout

it

i finally found my favorite word:
sycamore.

listen to it:
syca-more.

syc
a
more

syc-amour.