I tell someone that, this didn’t used to happen but, now there are mornings when I feel like there’s an orchestra in my chest. I know it’s a woo-woo thing to say but when the senses go beyond words you sometimes arrive at woo-woo. I have read about the soothing vibrations of humming and how those vibrations are known to calm the vagus nerve that is often un-calm. I have read that this is why people chant om, because the nasal resonance of m is particularly effective at dulling the chaotic jabs of that disobedient nerve. This is why people hum when they walk alone down an empty street at night. They are soothing their brains, rocking them to sleep like fussy babies. My orchestra does not make a sound. It is an image. It is motion. It does not rock my brain to sleep. It is awake.
The person I tell this to is someone I don’t know very well. When she finishes her aperol spritz, she turns to me and says she has been searching for that feeling for a long time. How did I find it?
Suddenly the shortcomings of language are palpable.