Feelings

I've been thinking recently about the way emotions feel, physically.

There are the fairly standard ones: stress like a metal band around the head, anger or tension coiling in the jaw. Sometimes there's just pain, or angst, systemic and unlocatable, that contracts the body into a fetal position.

Earlier this week, as I was lying in bed, memories kept hitting me, each one like a heavy canister falling off a shelf above my bed, bluntly striking me in a series of thuds.

Later in the week, I saw someone's photo of Italy, and although I'd never been to that particular location, the sense of longing was like having something pulled from behind my ribs by a hook, just below my sternum.

The mental processes are often inseparable from the physical effects, which is why, although we can't remember physical pain the way we can emotional pain, I also wonder about the kind of physical damage the latter might do, hanging around. Thankfully, it works both ways: the euphoric highs I've had from running are my own favorite example.

And how do I describe that feeling? I've used words like giddiness and euphoria, but I find it harder to put into words that physical sensation than the ones I discussed earlier. It's distinctly nonverbal. It's light and power and weightlessness--the antithesis, I suppose, of a dull ache. It's good chemicals, and the way to outrun the crazies.