Last night, as I was driving to Everett, I was listening to NPR and heard a piece on these ornately carved, sacred Russian bells that have lived at Harvard for 80 years. The 17th century bells were saved from Stalin's wrath by an American industrialist, who sent them to Harvard, where they're played by a roving team of students who refer to themselves as, I kid you not, "clappermeisters." Maybe it was the rain and the way it seems to stir my maudlin pot, but I started crying a little, right there in the car. There was just something so beautiful about jaded teenagers carrying on an age-old tradition of playing large, cumbersome bells. I pictured them, pushing the pedals with socked feet, up in their tower above the tree-lined campus. And then they played the theme from Harry Potter on the bells and I just lost it. It's a wonder I didn't drive off the road.
This happens to me more than I should probably admit. These times when I'm quite literally overwhelmed by beauty; when my heart seems to seize in my chest and blood rushes to my face and my fingers.
It's both a gift and a curse to feel this much, this easily.
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