i wish i could bottle all my emotions--those times i've experienced them the most strongly and purely--in jars and stick them on a shelf. that way i could see what color they were, and at any given moment, i could pull one down and compare it to the color inside me.
"what am i feeling right now?!?...am i happy? am i in love? am i jaded? let's look through my bottles...
"HAPPINESS: june 4, 2003: upon waking up to a breeze carrying the air off the honeysuckle plant outside my window into my room."
"DREAD: march 10, 2009: nightmare about my students, followed by having to go to school to teach all day lessons which i had not yet prepared."
"MISSING: august 5, 2007: sitting on the ferry after saying goodbye to vaiola and to jimmy. the hole in my soul."
"LOVE: february 14, 2005; july 28, 2008; may 6, 2009"
.....this one looks about the same hue as my insides. perhaps a little more vibrant, but that can happen when these things sit in bottles for a long time, memories fermenting like wine till their robustness nearly bursts the bottle. but look! it really is love/happiness/excitement! not just desire/selfishness/jealousy masquerading as shimmerypink-love or summeryellow-happiness or lightning-excitement. [because all those counterfeit feelings are double-hued. in the dark, jealousy's hue comes awfully close to the pink of love. but in the light, they all show a disgusting grayish.]
oskar schell understands. "what if the water that came out of the shower was treated with a chemical that responded to a combination of things, like your heart beat, and your body temperature, and your brain waves, so that your skin changed color according to your mood?...there are so many times hen you know you're feeling a lot of something, but you don't know what the something is. Am I frustrated? Am I actually just panicky? and that confusion changes your mood, it becomes your mood, and you become a confused, gray person. but with the special water, you could look at your orange hands and think, I'm happy! That whole time I was actually happy! What a relief!" (--extremely loud and incredibly close, jonathan safran foer, 163. brilliance in book form.)
