The world of a synaesthete is a strange one. Not to them, but to me. I cannot quite manage to imagine hearing, tasting and smelling colours. And yet I think there are times when our lives do exist in a portion of that.
When our days feel black.
When our souls feel bruised and we are filled with a taste of black and blue.
Feeling blue is more than sensation, it has a taste. Bitter, sour, rank.
But the sensation is there too, sharp but numb.
A cloud of colour surrounds you. The darkness that you are ensconced within as you try for sleep takes on a different edge. The pale ceiling glows at you through the darkness in the room as you lay, staring heavenwards, hoping that your mind will clear of the torrent of images, thoughts, stresses and sadnesses that flow so unchecked. You will it to stop, for things to become serene. That you won't have to climb from the warm bed with its new sheets you love so. That you won't have to open the drawer which contains those magic pills the kindly doctor prescribed for you so that sleep will always come. The magic pill will force the tide of sleep to come in and you will welcome it. For the respite until the morning.
You take the pill. You wait for it to work. Wonder when each of the thoughts clamouring for your attention will slowly be pushed aside as the depth of sleep swallows you. And you hope that the dreams tonight will be happy, free. Carefree.
And when the waking world finally, once again, becomes the one you inhabit, you hope the colour changes.
That the black recedes, that it doesn't fade to blue and that the loneliness is gone.
But it's just another day to live through. To exist in. And it's not quite enough.
4 comments:
Every day IS another day to live through, to exist in, to revel in, to exult in, to soak yourself in. Every day is a fresh day and new. Every day can be filled with colours that help and heal. Every day brings another opportunity to learn about life, yourself and your place within it. Another opportunity to discover the Child Within. LOVE the child within, cherish the child within. Indulge the child within. What does your child need? What does your child want? Give it to yourself. For myself, my child likes to be taken to bookshops, likes to walk where the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, likes to be by the sea. My child likes very special meals and spending time with congenial friends. And talking. And thinking. And music. My child knows which friends are nice and make me feel really good. My child likes to write and does write endlessly in a diary with a fountain pen until sleep overtakes me. I write everything down, all the circumlocutions of my brain. It washes my brain clean. And so does thinking in very great detail as I am walking. I might pick a physical ailment that is troubling me and trace it back to childhood - why have I got this thing wrong with me? Follow it, chase it, dont let it go until I have got every nuance of that childhood event. With my adult eyes, I know what was happening to my child and I can understand where the child could not and I can teach my child to not be afraid and I can tell my child that I love her and she is a beautiful human being and a Child of the Universe and deserves every good thing. And my child believes me and it makes me very happy. There is a park where I walk with trees all around and green in the middle - and I mean GREEN in the middle. Sometimes I have to be in the green. I lie in the middle of the open space and just stay there. In the green. And sometimes I might feel that I need some blue. I will go to the sea and walk or just be on the beach to be in the BLUE. Because I need it and my child needs it and I always listen and give my child what she needs and she never lies to me. Try it. Make this moment beautiful. This single instant in time. That is all any of us actually have. This single moment in time and space. Make it everything you could wish it to be. Smell those roses.
At least you can sit on your ass without wincing.........
(sorry!)
Carrie: I love what you write, you do it so beautifully and eloquently and I understand what you mean. I love living out in the country, knowing that as I did last week, I can go stand in my back garden in total darkness and look up at the stars and pick out the two constellations I recognise but feel the smile run through me at the expanse that's out there.
I know this when the black and blue recedes, I just forget and need reminding. Thank you.
TW: Ha! But I damaged my coccyx. My ass hurts dude.
Feel the smile run through you....... I love that! That's what it's like, a smile running right through you! Lovely.
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