Rubatosis
n.
the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat, whose tenuous muscular throbbing feels less like a metronome than a nervous ditty your heart is tapping to itself, as if to casually remind the outside world, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.
In music, tempo rubato, “stolen time,” is a slight speeding up and slowing down of the tempo of a piece, borrowing time from one measure then paying it back later. Pronounced “roo-bah-toh-sis.”
