I was listening to an episode of Poetry Unbound, a podcast hosted by Padraig O Tuama who is definitely a person I’d love to have at my dinner party. He mentioned that in Irish when you talk about emotion, you don’t say, “I am sad.” You say, “sadness is on me.” You don’t become the emotion, but you acknowledge it, and you understand that soon a different emotion will be on you.
Today, worry is on me. At least until I hear some news that will let me know whether or not I really need to be worried. A few days ago, calmness was on me for the first time in months. Deep, peaceful, joyous calmness. Oh, how I’d missed that emotion during these many months of pandemic living. At a recent gathering of my book club, happiness was on me, and on everyone else in the room. Several people commented on how good it felt to laugh.
I love this concept of not becoming an emotion, but also of acknowledging them. It’s okay to admit you are sad today or angry or worried or mourning. You don’t always have to smile. We will love you anyway.
But I think that sometimes an emotion does seep into our bones for a while. Depression, for one. But even something like determination can feel at times like a fixed emotion, especially for those of us who at some point got the message we were supposed to save the world or those of us whose high ambitions have…
