emotion

emotion to map - sublime

I'm not sure what is the best way to describe this emotion but I feel that the essence of this word aptly quantifies the dualities of euphoria and terror, awe of the unknown and the simultaneous comfort of familiarity when in Sydney.

I experienced this emotion and state of being at unexpected places. When Jessie and Icarus first took me to a small river not far from airport where the chill in the air, the wet grass and the industrial buildings hugging the river reminded me of the northeast of the US but the foreign accents, the fatigue of long travel and the never before seen vegetation growing along the rivers banks assured me I was in a place entirely untrodden by myself.

I also felt this on that place.... I forget what it was called(the Gap?) but it was where the suicide walk was and Megan did her walking backwards piece there as well. The infinity of the horizon line was a vastness that I had been awed by before but the terror of the unknown that was not only distant but in my immediate presence as well excited and frightened me.

I felt it a few times, this sublimity of the landscape and myself within it. When looking at the sky far above me from the depths of the forests of the Blue Mountains, I was belittled, so aware of my scale in relation to that of the foreign world around me. Nature which I had grown up amidst yet a nature so foreign to me it was at once unreal.... here again I felt the sublime.

C