“The oldest emotion in the world may have been that of being moved; but to describe it–just to name it–must have been like trying to catch something invisible. Having begun to feel, people’s desire to feel grew. They wanted to feel more, feel deeper, despite how much it sometimes hurt. People became addicted to the feeling… It’s possible that this is how art was born.”

-Nicole Krauss

That title–Catching Something Invisible–means something different to me than it did 5 or so years ago when I read the book, The History of Love,  at 21 years old. I was a feeling seeker, a passion junkie. A little blind to the fact that feeling in overdose sure can hurt sometimes.

And so whatever it was that I was trying to capture in my writing became, well, a little more invisible. I could always sense a sort of truth in the world, but as I’ve aged, I sense something more overwhelming. Something both painful and beautiful. It’s invisible but it’s compelling and it’s real. I want to find it.

I don’t have an easel or a paintbrush to create art. I am no sculptor and my performing ability is limited. But those who know me, for better or worse, they know that I am a girl that is “addicted to the feeling.”

I write now to understand the spectrum that spans from joy to pain. It’s like finding letters that symbolize sound and finding sounds to create an image. Capturing an Invisible Something looks a lot like this to me:

I’ve accepted that, while patience is not my best virtue, being moved can be a slow process. Big “Movements” come with little disorganized shifts with missing pieces and letters.  But big movement doesn’t have to be imperceptible. That’s why I’m trying to write it all down.

Because if you catch these little moments, they belong to you before they can escape into the great mass of uncelebrated existence.

It’s not certain and seldom likely, but while I try my hardest to define what is human about humanity, I suppose it’s possible that a little art might be born here too.