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I was thinking, trying to pare emotions down to a single word for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
comment_fic prompts, that some sensations are simply nameless. Even emotions, which theoretically have single words to express them, are more complicated: those single words merely define the genre of sensation, not the sensation itself. Anger comes in a thousand forms, sorrow, faith, joy, wonder. *smiles* Ballpark definitions only.
I was thinking, then, of sensations that really have no name. Moods, maybe, feelings that come upon you, that don't really translate well.
There was one ... Have you ever gone night driving? Not the backroads, that's a slightly different sensation, but the main ones, motorways, and I think Americans call them highways? The ones with the sodium lights defining the center or the sides, the light ribbons through the darkness. And the hours between eleven and three, really, the hours of real darkness, the deep parts of the night. Have you ever gone?
There's a sensation, a feeling. The hollow rumble of the wheels under you, the distant howl of the wind outside the shell of the car. The rhythm of lights going past one by one by one, light then shadow then light. The glow of the dash, the stream of other cars around you, a red string in front of you, and a white string beside you, going the other way. The weird sensation of detachment, lifted up on the rumble and hiss of the wheels under you, wrapped in a hollow cocoon of night and light and wind. Solitude and silence and vague purpose, a solitary movement through a world of people equally alone and equally purposeful. Drifting along the ribbons of light at one faint, hollow remove from each other.
I remember reading a book when I was a kid. Very young, it was one of the first books I ever read on my own reconnaissance. I can't remember very much about it, possibly there was a lot more plot in the bits I don't remember. But it was about a girl travelling across the tundra to a school multiple days of travel away, by train. And I remember that sensation. Travel, isolating and unifying at the same time, the solitary sensation of purpose, drifting alongside others in similar motion. Night driving, the rhythm of light and darkness, and the distant sound of the wheels. Like the train, the rhythm of the wheels, and the white of the tundra rolling past.
Stillness in motion, the solitude of movement. There was another variation. When the wind is blowing along the line of a beach, in the hollow path cut between the cliffs and the sea, and you turn into it. Walk along, feeling the rhythm and power of your legs under you, the rise and fall of your stride, and you walk into the wind, so that the howl of it catches you about the ears, under the breastbone, and lifts you up into the sky. The howl of the sky wrapped around you, the endless wheel of it, and the hum of power as you lope through. Stillness in motion, the wheel of ages, the solitary wonder of what must feel very much like flight. The tug of your heart upwards and outwards, caught only barely by your breastbone, and the spool of your mind, out into the rhythmic flash of light or the vast wheel of blue. Safe in the purpose of motion, untouchable while the destination is not yet reached, and wild in the silence of it.
What is the word for that? Solitude and silence and power, selfhood and flight, silent union of shared purpose. The ribbons of light in darkness, and the wheel of blue above the wind-road. What do you call that? Is there a word?
*shakes head* Some things are nameless, I think. Sensation, experience, the hum of the self in the world that cradles it. Do we have words, for all the ways we are? Can we?
*tilts head, laughs faintly* And yes. I am mildly euphoric, tonight. These moods come on me, sometimes, lift me up into the wheel. *grins, spreads arms* Caught under the breastbone, whirled upwards. It works. There is flight in solitude, and love in the distant union of motion.
I love flying. There are moments when the world touches that part of me, the part that flies, and I don't think there are words for that, but so long as there is still the sensation, however untranslatable, I think I shall not care. *smiles, turns in flight to bow* And so!
comment_fic prompts, that some sensations are simply nameless. Even emotions, which theoretically have single words to express them, are more complicated: those single words merely define the genre of sensation, not the sensation itself. Anger comes in a thousand forms, sorrow, faith, joy, wonder. *smiles* Ballpark definitions only.I was thinking, then, of sensations that really have no name. Moods, maybe, feelings that come upon you, that don't really translate well.
There was one ... Have you ever gone night driving? Not the backroads, that's a slightly different sensation, but the main ones, motorways, and I think Americans call them highways? The ones with the sodium lights defining the center or the sides, the light ribbons through the darkness. And the hours between eleven and three, really, the hours of real darkness, the deep parts of the night. Have you ever gone?
There's a sensation, a feeling. The hollow rumble of the wheels under you, the distant howl of the wind outside the shell of the car. The rhythm of lights going past one by one by one, light then shadow then light. The glow of the dash, the stream of other cars around you, a red string in front of you, and a white string beside you, going the other way. The weird sensation of detachment, lifted up on the rumble and hiss of the wheels under you, wrapped in a hollow cocoon of night and light and wind. Solitude and silence and vague purpose, a solitary movement through a world of people equally alone and equally purposeful. Drifting along the ribbons of light at one faint, hollow remove from each other.
I remember reading a book when I was a kid. Very young, it was one of the first books I ever read on my own reconnaissance. I can't remember very much about it, possibly there was a lot more plot in the bits I don't remember. But it was about a girl travelling across the tundra to a school multiple days of travel away, by train. And I remember that sensation. Travel, isolating and unifying at the same time, the solitary sensation of purpose, drifting alongside others in similar motion. Night driving, the rhythm of light and darkness, and the distant sound of the wheels. Like the train, the rhythm of the wheels, and the white of the tundra rolling past.
Stillness in motion, the solitude of movement. There was another variation. When the wind is blowing along the line of a beach, in the hollow path cut between the cliffs and the sea, and you turn into it. Walk along, feeling the rhythm and power of your legs under you, the rise and fall of your stride, and you walk into the wind, so that the howl of it catches you about the ears, under the breastbone, and lifts you up into the sky. The howl of the sky wrapped around you, the endless wheel of it, and the hum of power as you lope through. Stillness in motion, the wheel of ages, the solitary wonder of what must feel very much like flight. The tug of your heart upwards and outwards, caught only barely by your breastbone, and the spool of your mind, out into the rhythmic flash of light or the vast wheel of blue. Safe in the purpose of motion, untouchable while the destination is not yet reached, and wild in the silence of it.
What is the word for that? Solitude and silence and power, selfhood and flight, silent union of shared purpose. The ribbons of light in darkness, and the wheel of blue above the wind-road. What do you call that? Is there a word?
*shakes head* Some things are nameless, I think. Sensation, experience, the hum of the self in the world that cradles it. Do we have words, for all the ways we are? Can we?
*tilts head, laughs faintly* And yes. I am mildly euphoric, tonight. These moods come on me, sometimes, lift me up into the wheel. *grins, spreads arms* Caught under the breastbone, whirled upwards. It works. There is flight in solitude, and love in the distant union of motion.
I love flying. There are moments when the world touches that part of me, the part that flies, and I don't think there are words for that, but so long as there is still the sensation, however untranslatable, I think I shall not care. *smiles, turns in flight to bow* And so!
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