MIDDLESEX

Emotions in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I  do not believe in 'sadness'. 'joy', or 'regret'. Maybe the best proof that language is patriachial  is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd  like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster.' Or: the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how 'intimations of  mortality brought on by aging family members  connects with 'the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age.'I'd like to see a word for 'the sadness that is inspired by failing restaurants as well as for 'the excitement  of getting a room with a minibar.' I have never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. I cant just sit back and watch from a distance anymore. From here on in, everything I'll tell you is colored by the subjective experience of being part of events. Here is where my story splits, divides, undergoes meiosis. Already the world feels heavier, now I'm a part of it. I'm talking about bandages and sopped cotton, the smell of mildew in movie theaters, and of all the lousy cats and their stinking litter boxes, of rain on city streets when the dust comes up and the old Italian men take their folding chairs inside....Oh am loving Eugenides!