step 39: heartache
Silence are the things people don’t say.
So said professor Vincent Sherry. In my Virginia Woolf course, we are reading “The Voyage Out” and talking about feelings that know no vocabulary, that know no grammar.
The language we know, at the most, is inadequate. How laughable we may find the words, “I just want you.” There is no good way to say it, and how easily we roll our eyes at the ludicrously sounding cliches, the terrible writing we condemn romance novels for.
Then one day you are met with feelings that know no vocabulary and know no grammar. You sit there across from him, unable to articulate the weight that holds you down, knowing he is also held down without knowing whether the textures and complexities his weight bears resemble that which yours does.
And you realize that these clumsy phrase and grasping words, as inadequate as they appear, are the best we can do. In this place, you realize this desiring language encompasses a greater, uncommnicable condition.
You discover how difficiult it is to focus your vision on a face that appears so large, which looms so close.
You are surprised by how clearly you can actually see a reflection of your grim expression against the dark circles of two brown eyes.
You feel the physical sensation, a swelling of pressure, that squeezes the walls of your cavity. Each breath harbors an inexpressible sentiment, pushing against your coat of skin with a desire to be released.
You see, somehow sense, the same despair given away by something in his tired stance, limbs as rigid as your. Longing takes the form of outstretched hands and a drooping head or a pinched, somber face.
You feel your feelings. You recognize if, but not what, he feels his feelings.
“What are you thinking?”
You are feeling. Greater meaning, and thought, elude you.
