It's so typical. I can't be moderate in anything at all. I think that I have been doped up for so long now that I can't even imagine reality in full colour. Everything is just a little blurred. I can function but the edges are off. I can only hope that the general effect is a softening of my own rough edges but that is probably too much to ask.
I downloaded a Quirks and Quarks episode today about synesthesia because I heard the teaser last month and wanted to listen to the program but of course didn't happen to be driving at that precise time slot. It is so interesting that a.) not everyone sees months in a colour and arranged in a specific pattern in space, and b.) that there is a word for that phenomenon. It brings up all sorts of interesting brain biology questions and of course the inevitable wondering about how other people perceive reality. I wrote a poem a few years back about windows and how I used to think everyone was looking through the same one and that poetry was just describing the view and that I had just realized that there were actually a lot of windows and we don't really any of us share much of a view. That perspective was kind of devastating to me at the time. Now I'm thinking it's even worse than I thought and maybe we're not even in the same building looking out in different directions, but rather spread out all over a large space and looking in various windows of unrelated buildings and shouting out what we see as if it's the only reality.
Aaagh!
My poor husband does not suffer from synesthesia of any sort whatsoever and I see this blank look of terror sometimes slowly spreading across his face if I try to describe how I feel or how a situation has made me feel. What do you do. It's exactly the same though if he starts to try to explain the mechanism of the clutch in our car and how my actions in driving can affect the mechanism (he very gently and considerately tries to phrase this in positive ways as he sees the same sort of look of terror spreading across my face, probably). Numbers and mechanical objects, having no colours in my mind, do not arrange themselves in any sort of pattern that I can grasp or remember and so do not behave with anything but the most capricious randomness. Whereas kids with autism shoot out the most incredibly clear emotional colors and textures that are ever so easy to respond to. Even more so because they are authentic and from their core. And there you go - I lost him again. Fortunately I married a man with almost no variation in essential colour and textures and so he is very comfortingly consistent which tends to bring me back to where I should be eventually. My kids on the other hand are such interesting blends of depth and shade and hue and becoming even more so the older they get.
All of which brings me to my latest book find - "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller. What a great writer! The title hooked me because of course jazz is blue and the cover was exactly the right shade for it. As it turned out the whole book is ramblings on Christian spirituality as opposed to Christianity. Very non-sequential and brutally honest and so a lovely refreshing read. Much like jazz music. Almost you can't read too much at once. It's a little too sweet.
And as for life events - I believe I can finally reveal a somewhat definite plan for the next year!! There's a story behind all this but for now I am continuing with Attic Therapy and increasing my hours at Mental Health to approximately 0.8 FTE. This should be interesting as I am very busy in both roles and my home life is none too calm either. We'll see if I can work out workouts in there somewhere. After, of course, I finally get healthy. Gravity is pretty unforgiving.
