I�m always amazed at the power of sound on my emotions � more specifically, music. When I hear Pavaroti sing the crescendo in the Nessun Dorma, I get all choked up and tears come to my eyes. I have to put on a brave face for those around me but I can�t speak for a few minutes after that. When Joni Mitchel moans "oh Canada" in A Case of You on that Orchestral album she recorded a couple of years ago, I get a huge lump in my throat. I don�t know why that happens, maybe it�s a bit of nationalism *sure it is* but I absolutely adore the combination of notes and sound and texture at that particular point in the song.

We rented Moulin Rouge Last night. Bye the way, that�s another movie that I expected to hate but that I love to death. And what a great DVD! We rented it because I�ve become very respectful of Nicole Kidman�s acting after The Others. What a ride...and now I think I�ll try to rent everything Baz Luhrman�s ever done.

But I digress.

Moulin Rouge�s musical premise is based mostly on the music of the twentieth century. So when Ewen McGregor breaks out into Elton John�s, Your Song, (Fuck, can that guy sing) I friggin� nearly broke down. I�m pretty sure that song brought me right back to the first time I heard it when I was young and in love with a classmate and was listening to that song with her in the lunchroom in high school and, hearing it sung that way made me want to weep over something I�d lost. I�m still not sure what it was that made me feel that way but the power that song had over me was immeasurable. Then, later on, they broke into the most incredibly dramatic version of Sting�s Roxanne that I felt an extreme chill from my tailbone to the top of my head.

There have been visual cues that have given me the same kind of emotional pangs but nothing is as powerful to me as music. Nothing! I�ve seen some paintings that have made an intense sensory impression on me. There�s a painter named Joan Cornu whose work I�ve only seen in a commercial gallery in Montreal that sends chills up my spine. That gallery has also had some sculptures that have had the same effect on me.

A lot of movies and some TV shows literally paralyze me some times because the story has such an intense impact. Sometimes, I�ll just get up and walk away because I get so angry at a character, usually over betrayal. But I find myself, very often, in a big lump of mush at the end of a film because I�m so sad that I can hardly speak. I think of films like Cast Away or Vanilla Sky or even documentaries such as anything related to the NASA space program in the sixties or any one of a squillion other shows or movies.

Sometimes it isn�t so much the story but just how well made a picture is. A beautifully crafted film has a huge emotional effect on me. I can�t even understand that. I appreciate anything that is well done and well crafted but why would I be such a suck about it? And I have no way of controlling that.

And what about love! I really wish we were like the Inuit who apparently have a couple of dozen words for snow. Because I think Love, the word, doesn�t come close to expressing the different ways we can feel about one another. But it�s the only word that has any intensity of feeling.

Why is it, for example that when I see or hear her name, I turn into a child who�s just seen their favourite cousin or uncle at the door. I get so excited. I look for something new from her about ten times a day, I swear to God. And, when there isn�t anything from her, I get all mopy. I can�t explain why I feel this way about her. I know I love her but I love others as well and they don�t have the same effect on me. I can only surmise that there are different kinds of love, different levels, and she�s in some special zone in my heart. I do love Luvofmylife (God knows, I�ve never loved anyone any more than her) and Blu who holds a special place inside of me, but there�s no one who lights up my heart and mind the way Maddy does.

I better be careful here. I don�t want her to read this and feel in any way obligated. I�m just sayin�, you know?

In general, I may be trying to analyze something that should be left alone. I have feelings that make me feel alive. Well, I wish I weren�t so friggin� weepy some times, but maybe I should just let myself feel what I feel and accept that.

On the other hand, maybe I need a shrink.

Arc