The Big Chill
I’m working this weekend, providing respite foster care for a man with developmental disabilities, and so I wasn’t planning to do my regular Sunday Scribblings. But then, while stealing some time on the computer as my friend was listening to his weather radio, I found myself reading a blog post that gave me goose bumps. “Aha! There you are,” I said as I studied the shivered flesh of my own arm and took it as a sign, knowing that “goose bumps” is the Scribblings writing prompt this weekend.
From my point of view, getting goose bumps is always a good sign, a reminder that I’m more than my mind, more than my physical body. I think of goose bumps, shivers, and chills as emotional sonar, a function of the higher part of myself that can’t be logically explained. Just as sneezes and spontaneous smiles always feel good to me, so do visceral reactions, even when they move me to tears.
Art galleries are places that hold mine fields of emotions that can set off a series of goosey reactions in me, everything from shivers up my spine, to invisible blows to my gut, or feelings that I’m coming unglued. I’ve been known twitch in the presence of good art, like a geiger counter for beauty, even a terrible beauty. And a poem like THIS ONE can make my eyes water with emotion, as it did yesterday when I read it, because it stirs my own appreciation of family history, beauty of the land, the bittersweet reality of living and aging, and love.
This morning it was the nostalgic lyrics of a country music song that pricked through my exterior and set the chain of bumps in motion. As a northerner transplanted in the south, I had been living in Virginia for 15 years before I discovered I liked country music. Stuck in an auto shop waiting room while getting a new muffler put on my car, I found myself watching the Country Music Channel that was tuned in on the shop TV. Song after song gave me shivers. I knew that shivers alert me to pay attention to a truth being told. When I get them, I listen.
The lyrics to the country music song posted today by Susan at Patchwork Reflections started out quirky and innocently enough … We were born to mothers who smoked and drank … Our cribs were covered in lead based pain …. But soon they went on to describe drinking from a garden hose instead of from bottled plastic; playing outside instead of inside on video game; having only 3 TV channels that we had to get up to change; and I was transported back to my childhood, to people and places I hold dear. I was struck, as if by lightening, with goose bumps.
I like to be surprised by the power of emotion, moved to feel in a visible way. I think goose bumps are good for the soul. As a writer, I often don’t know what I’m thinking until I write it down. As a human being, I sometimes don’t even know I’m having feelings until the goose bumps on my arms give me away.
What gives you goose bumps?
August 11th, 2007 9:20 pm
Excellent post with something of substance to share… well worth the read!
August 11th, 2007 9:30 pm
Usually something creepy crawly like snakes and huge spiders…or maybe something just eerie involving ghost-like entities.
August 11th, 2007 9:43 pm
The same things as you…but then again, we’re related.:) BTW…we *still* only have three channels at my house…well, maybe four..if you adjust the rabbit ears just right!
August 11th, 2007 10:15 pm
1. I hate needles
2. I don’t like spiders
August 12th, 2007 1:11 am
Very interesting post. I’d never really thought of goosepimples as being a sign of something special going on but it’s so true. Thnaks for this.
August 12th, 2007 4:20 am
Oh My…there are so very many things that can give me goose bumps..and most of them involve “performance”, wether it be a painting that has been created..many have given my ‘bumps’ and moved me to tears…or a play or a book, or a musical performance…or a movie…anything that touches the deepest core of me is a goose bumo experience.
That poem is a beautiful beautiful piece…the imagery is stunning! Thanks for sharing that Colleen…I did leave a comment there…!
August 12th, 2007 4:49 am
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I think the past gives many people goosebumps.
Lovely post, I enjoyed the personal touch.
Rose
xo
August 12th, 2007 6:03 am
What gives me goose bumps? Laura does, every time she enters the room…
Thunderstorms.
The way my old black Labrador Retriever, Roxie would stay right under my feet when I was having a tough day, no matter how hard I tried to hide it.
Good music.
A well-told story or poem.
A new Loose Leaf post.
August 12th, 2007 7:22 am
This post gave me goosebumps, maybe knowing you got the same reaction from those lyrics as I did. I could picture in my mind all of those images conjured by the song – from my mother with a cigarette and a drink… to being in elementary school listening to a bible verse every morning after the pledge of allegiance.
Love your definition of goose bumps, an emotional sonar, a good sign!
August 12th, 2007 9:07 am
May your goosebumps always freerange! May thier eggs be cageless!
I get goosebumps in my vegetable garden. The habaneros are biting. We’re going in.
Thanks Collen,
RM
August 12th, 2007 11:51 am
Hi Colleen. I get goose bumps at the drop of a hat. Beyond the usual temperature-related causes, I tend to get bumpy when I’m excited. Often, when I’m writing and things are flowing really well, I’ll notice goose bumps on my forearms.
They’re often accompanied by a tingle down my spine. I guess just a little reminder that magic still exists.
Hi from Michele…sorry I’m so brief today. I’m zipping in and out in the middle of family/house stuff. Shh, don’t tell my wife 🙂
August 12th, 2007 12:59 pm
In 1975, I took a British history course. The professor held the class in England. Early on in our studies, we visited the National Gallery. Earlier that school year, I gave a presentation on Rembrandt. Of course, my presentation was based on one dimensional copies of his paintings found in books.
Then I viewed paintings of his in the Rembrandt room. Goosebumps crawled from my eyebrows to my calves. I could see his brush strokes, places where he had used the flat back of his paint brush handle, the thickness in places of the paint itself.
The live viewing made his paintings multi-dimensional. I was awestruck.
This is all to say that I, too, have and do have this goosebump experience in the company of art,especially when I am seeing it live.
August 12th, 2007 1:25 pm
It’s like the spirit behind the brush stroke is embodied in it …in brilliant living color.
August 12th, 2007 2:31 pm
the cold….. 🙂
more-so than goosebumps, i get tingly on the inside when something moves me….but i love the thought that the goosebumps are those tinglies made manifest!
August 12th, 2007 3:12 pm
Goose bumps…hmmm…I tend to get an overwhelming sensation in my heart, and I tear up, than getting actual goose bumps. When the kids are in something and I am so proud of them I can get goose bumps. Or when someone tells a spellbinding story about a miracle and I get so taken in I get goose bumps. Shivers up my spine always make me think a ghost has breathed on me! Maybe it is because I stay wrapped up in those chicken bumps from the cold air of the air conditioner all the time so I can’t enjoy a good goose bump!
August 12th, 2007 7:15 pm
YOU…..give me goosebumps.
Along with many other things that have been mentioned here in your comments. xoox
August 12th, 2007 7:28 pm
oh, this is great! i love the conclusion you draw. very nice.
August 13th, 2007 7:13 pm
Just reading your post gave me the bumps, the good bumps, the nice chills.
August 13th, 2007 9:25 pm
Alas…I have too much Virgo in my astrological chart to ever truly enjoy drinking out of a garden hose.
Goosebumps… music. Specifically live singing. I’m addicted to the thrill of it.
~S
August 14th, 2007 10:19 pm
Emotions of any kind give rise to goose bumps.