Inquiring Minds Want to Know
The ever-inquisitive Mabel asked: “Besides enabling ‘ask’, three things that make you tremble?”
1. Trembling in fear. I am completely undone by heights. Big heights, trivial little step-ladder heights, doesn’t really matter. There was a fire escape on my laboratory building at Virginia Tech, with a cat-walk that led to the graduate students’ offices in the garrett. I would climb up there and practice looking over the edge, hoping to habituate myself to the nauseous fear, but it didn’t take. Can’t stand heights.
2. Trembling in wonder. A few examples: I trembled the first time I saw Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, and the first time I heard The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams. I easily go all Stendhal-ish. I also trembled at first viewing of the Grand Canyon, but that may have been due to the altitude or the sudden drop off (See 1. Trembling in fear, above).
3. Trembling for joy. I trembled to the core when Things 1 and 2 were born. I’m trembling still.
There are others, notably 4. Trembling in rage, which has several sub-categories, including 4a. Trembling in rage while driving on the freeway and 4b. Trembling in rage when people are stupidly racist or homophobic. There is also 5. Trembling when speaking truth to power, but that might just be an adrenaline cascade.
The photo above is by the amazing Terry Border, whose work can be found at bentobjects.blogspot.com. I did not obtain permission before posting his photo here. Please do not reblog it without proper attribution and a link!
