"I Taste Colors" - Art, Synaesthesia, and Mental Mapping (originally published 12/2018)
Ali Azmat and Junoon - photo by débora Ewing My brain's tangly. I'm working over a short story which isn't a story, and my writing compatriots have requested I interject synaesthetic impressions throughout. I'm angry that they're so nosy, and yet I can - should - do this. I have to first pin down what synaesthesia means to me and then clean up those little bits of writing so they can be seen for what they are. I honestly didn't know synaesthesia is a thing until a friend explained to me exactly how my brain works. For one, a certain color may trigger a taste in my mouth. Words are tangible in my mind, like I can touch them. I recently learned the word pareidolia and it makes sense to me, too: I find patterns. I can recognize the same pattern visually, aurally, texturally, and apply a music pattern to art, or cooking, or gardening. You know, conceptual skeletons. People get confused if I tell them the soup needs to be more blue, but if I just make it...