That feeling

I like Sundays because it is so quiet. Not just in the house, but the entire neighborhood. It is like everyone is napping, the entire world, hypnotized by the blue sky and sun. I told Lee that I will go hiking at the place by my house, but it is so lovely to be lazy, to not do anything. There is beauty inside the house too, a sleepy kind of beauty. I washed the dishes and cleaned up my room after the mess of manuscripts that I left in a pile on the floor. I always feel slightly depressed at the end of a semester. Lee tells me I don't know how to say goodbye. It's true. I'm terrible at it, and am always too sentimental. I starting missing these strangers. It is so strange and silly.

Over the past few days, I have been thinking about one manuscript in class in particular. I couldn't understand why I felt nothing when everyone else in class talked about how moved they were--is there something wrong with me? Perhaps. Perhaps for me, the problem is the same one I sometimes find when reading poems--the language is already so packed with emotions that it just leaves me no space to feel. Sometimes, that is why I don't like prose that is too rich in emotion. In fact, I think I am drawn to prose that has a lack of emotion, that asks me to bring to it the emotion. Don't know if I am making much sense. For me, it is always about a feeling. The best kind of stories leave an intense emotional response, a strong feeling which I can't quite put my finger on. Sometimes I cry from the impact of this feeling. It is not one feeling in itself. It is the feeling of coming so close to something but not quite getting it. I've tried explaining this to Lee once, but it just came out all silly and nonsensical. I'm always after that feeling. And just the day before, I found it in Edith Wharton's The Muse's Tragedy. I was elated. Yes! I discovered a writer I like, only to be disappointed by the story that followed. Maybe it is just a rarity. I wonder if Edith Wharton knew that that story was an especially powerful one? How wonderful if one day I too can create something that someone else would think: What is this feeling that I am feeling and how should I put my finger on it? And why can't I stop shaking?