17 July 2007

Sadness of Domesticated Birds




i love.
* summer storms * conversations with friends * dove unconditional chocolate icrecream+ben & jerry's cinnamon buns (wow. try it.) * summer peaches * "gotta have you" by the weepies * good fiction

This is a really long excerpt from Everything is Illuminated, but it is worth reading. It's a great book, very different from the film version, a bit disturbing at parts, unusual and moving. This part sort of makes you want to laugh and/or cry, or at very least, say, "I've felt that":

The following encyclopedia of sadness was found on the body of Brod D. The original 613 sadnesses, written in her diary, corresponded to the 613 commandments of our (not their) Torah. Show below is what was salvageable after Brod was recovered. (Her diary's wet pages printed the sadnesses onto her body. Only a small fraction [55] were legible. The other 558 sadnesses are lost forever, and it is hoped that, without knowing what they are, no one will have to experience them.) The diary from which they came was never found.

SADNESSES OF THE BODY: Mirror sadness....sadness of makeup; sadness of physical pain; pins-and-needles sadness; beauty sadness; sadness of clothes; sadness of the quavering eyelid; sadness of a missing rib; noticeable sadness; sadness of going unnoticed...

SADNESSES OF THE COVENANT: Sadness of God's love, sadness of God's back; favorite child sadness; sadness of being sad in front of one's God; sadness of the opposite of belief; what if? sadness; sadness of God alone in heaven; sadness of a God who would need people to pray to him....

SADNESSES OF THE INTELLECT: Sadness of being misunderstood; humor sadness; sadness of love without release; sadness of being smart; sadness of not knowing enough words to express what you mean; sadness of not having options; sadness of wanting sadness; sadness of confusion; sadness of domesticated birds; sadness of finishing a book; sadness of remembering; sadness of forgetting; anxiety sadness...

INTERPERSONAL SADNESSES: Sadness of being sad in front of one's parent; sadness of false love; sadness of love; friendship sadness; sadness of bad conversation; sadness of the could-have-been; secret sadness...


There is also sadness of watching fireworks, sadness of missing someone you've never met. Can you add any to the list? I'd like to know.

So right now I'm chillin, working, house & dog sitting until tomorrow. Summer will be over before we know it. Maybe I have sadness of mid to late July, or sadness of not having seen many fireflies this year. Just a tinge.



Fireflies image:
From the following article:
Nanotechnology: Nano-oscillators get it together
Pritiraj Mohanty
Nature 437, 325-326 (15 September 2005)
doi:10.1038/437325a

3 Comments:

Blogger Heidi said...

Sadness of nostalgia- the memory seems better than the reality was...

Sadness of happiness because you know sadness will return...

(and it's converse, happiness of sadness, because you know happiness will return)

That is quite a quote. Now to blog about swimming...

11:40 PM  
Blogger April said...

sadness of not belonging...and the sadness of not realizing you don't belong until very, very late...and sadness that you've carried that feeling of not belonging for too long, for soo long, just to try and be strong and get through.

that's very depressing...maybe it's why i don't think about it very often. ugh. alrighty...

6:59 PM  
Blogger Liz said...

The sadness of knowing something, the sadness of being unable to change something, the weight of the world sadness you feel after reading a book like The Kite Runner, the sadness of a good break up song, or the sadness that comes when you hear a song and completely enter into...

also, i completely love "gotta have you" by the weepies, it's on my summer 07 playlist.

8:47 AM  

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