French fries taste like a fucshia squiggly

For two decades I have had a fascination with a sensory condition known as synesthesia. I was introduced to the concept in my early 20’s when I was at university, blasting my favourite band at the time in my residence room and singing along loudly as I was wont to do in those days. I think I probably drove my fellow residents nuts with my obsession with that particular band. I won’t say who they were. My love for them, while nostalgically sentimental, has waned in recent years, and maybe I’m now slightly embarrassed about it, and also not all that impressed with some of the shit-talking the bandleader has done about some other artists I now cherish.

Anyway, a friend had caught me blaring said unsaid band one day, and asked me why I liked them so much. It was not the first time I found myself having to defend my love for the band, but my previous defenses had all come up short. For me, music is all about the feels. I don’t have a technical understanding of instrumentation, and my knowledge of music theory is basic at best. So having to explain why I love a band or a piece of music is tough. I love it because I love it. I love the feelings, the way the sounds all swell together and create a full, sunshiney feeling in my chest. I love the chills I get through my body when the lead vocals intertwine with the background vocals. I love when the lyrics are relatable, but I also love when they’re poetic or abstract.

So my response on that day was to point to the print I had on my wall of abstract expressionist Wassily Kandinsky’s Rouge, Bleu et Jaune, and explain that to me, the music sounded like that painting; that the two different pieces of art elicit the same kind of a response in me – an about-to-burst kind of joy.

It was then that my friend asked me if I had synesthesia, to which I responded Gesundheit, for I had never heard the word before. He explained that it’s like a cross-wiring of the senses – that people with synesthesia might “hear colours” (aka, see colours, patterns, shapes, etc when they hear music) or taste sounds (aka, get tastes in their mouth when they hear certain sounds), or experience letters and numbers with their own unique associated colours. I immediately thought that was the coolest thing in the universe.

And then I felt kind of sad, because I realized that I don't have that, but I desperately want it. Not desperate enough to try and get it artificially via LSD mind you... I aspire to keep the mind melting to a minimum.

Synesthesia tends to be common among artists. I remember once reading about Vincent Van Gogh's use of yellow in his paintings as playing the "yellow high note". I swooned at that. It's the most beautiful and romantic thing I can think of. And even though my brain doesn't do that, something my brain does do is actively search for connections between things, and so it's easy for me to imagine a yellow high note, or a word that tastes like lime jellybeans, or a number that looks like a chartreuse triangle with two purple dots and a coral pink swoosh through it.

I've tried to incorporate synesthesia into things I've written, art I've created. Nothing that ever really amounted to anything, just doodles and scratches mainly. Oh, and a rom-com screenplay where the protagonist had synesthesia... Mixed Signals. I still like that story. Maybe one day I'll do something with it, actually try to make that movie.

I'm really happy I found a neat way to incorporate the idea of synesthesia into Lifesicle. It's one of the features of this project that I'm particularly proud of and excited about.

Although I have to admit that the past week has been difficult as far as keeping up my enthusiasm. When I'm working on a project such as this, I tend to care about it so much that when it seems like other people don't care, I question whether or not my enthusiasm and passion are valid, and I question whether or not the project is worthwhile. It kind of starts to feel like "what's the point?". I've been battling that mindset all week.  I almost gave up.

But then since Friday, drips and drabs of feedback have begun to trickle in, and today I feel slightly better. It's been positive, with some constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement, which is exactly what I'm looking for. It's not that I want to give up, but part of self-expression is that you need an audience, and that seems to be the hardest part for me -- getting what I've done out to the people who WILL care about it. I suppose that's not a unique problem. I just don't really know what other self-published authors do about it.

(Then there's the obstinate, childish part of me who rolls her eyes and gags when her mother says "Who cares what anyone else thinks! Do it for yourself!  Don't give up! You're awesome!" Yeah, caring what other people think is written into my DNA. That's not going away anytime soon. But she's not altogether wrong. Her feedback is less about the book and more about me as a human being, and I suppose I need that too).

Now I just need to figure out what my next step is. That list I made a few weeks ago? I can't seem to find my place on it...

PS - Dear Blogger, your html formatting feature sucks donkey balls. Seriously, make this better. The fact that I went in and had to manually re-code the font sizing and line breaks only to have it not even update is really, really lame.