Some people can see love. They are called synaesthetes. They are few, very few, but they can see colors and shapes and animations for every word, every voice, every number, everything. “Peace” is a rainbow disk floating above a maple syrup sea. Your voice is vivid yellow with small, fiery rocks floating in it. The synaesthete sees the world in a 4th dimension of swirling color and ethereal smoke. But beautiful as everything may be, the synaesthete is trained to think completely literally by his visuals. Therefore, concepts do not have meaning. Synaesthetes have no understanding of the abstract. How could they, when “nothing” is a shower of chartreuse sparks in a mist?
I said synaesthetes were few, but every mental condition people have is just an exaggeration of ordinary behavior. For example, a boy may be clumsy and loud and awkward, but that does not mean he has Aspergers Syndrome. It may just be his personality. Let’s say there are two worlds: the world of Mental Conditions and the world of Normal. Each person in each world has a parallel in the other world. In Mental Conditions, the diagnosed synaesthetes see “grief” as a fuzzy, orange ball. Their parallels in Normal observe others “grieving” and, not having ever experienced grief themselves, cannot understand it and so think of it as black clothing and crying. And since the black clothing and crying disappears, they think the grief disappears too.
Do you see where I am driving? How can one understand “love” without loving? Does “loneliness” mean anything without the experience? “I’m lonely,” you may say. But perhaps you do not know what true loneliness is. Everybody is like a synaesthete in some way, replacing true understanding with an image and some empty words.
When my little sister died, I felt like a ghost, floating from place to place, staring into sympathetic faces without registering their owners. The grief alienated me even from my best friends because I thought nobody could understand. They were all synaesthetes in a different world full of opulent colors and richly swirling ribbons, seeing my grief and not comprehending. I was alone in the wasteland of cruel reality.
I feel a level of emotion now. It is a lonely feeling, forlorn, a nostalgic feeling. Whenever I go into a strange city it comes on. In England, it hit me at every street corner as I remembered each spot from five years previously, flashing back to the laughter and pain of each fragrant memory. Finally, it came to a head in a worship service when a group of teens began to sing “Blessed Be the Name of the Lord” to guitar strums in a small space. Lizzie loved that song. They played it at her funeral service, so it makes sense that it would have triggered tears. But why do I feel this strange emotion now, as an alien bound for new experiences totally unrelated to the past?
Grieving for a person is what I’ve been used to, but now I grieve for times past. Tears for Lizzie were triggered by a song, but tonight’s rain triggers other tears. I was walking in the rain, and it kept getting in my glasses, and the world was blurry and dark and light. And I remembered. I remembered running. I took off my glasses and crushed them into my palm. I remembered running on the trail. Hope and Hannah were there beside me, worrying about mascara dissolving into raccoon rings ’round their eyes. I remembered cross country, and some rope hammocks. I remembered a lake and singing about sitting by it and Cole’s voice and ukuleles. I remembered getting into a boat and finding myself tangled in the ropes and Bray laughing at me. Becca and I singing about bananas. I remembered trying to sing to the pounding of runners’ feet and gasping, gasping. The meet when we won State, and the bittersweet second place of the boys. I remembered a coach making up couples and laughing at our expressions. I remembered a coach telling me I had heart. I remembered cloudy skies and blue eyes. I remembered jogging with Nathan in the pouring rain, and I took off my glasses. This has all happened. And it will never happen again.
There are many other times. Little things, like Niichel throwing me off the float. Big things, like debating with Savannah in the car ride from Cedar Point and the way Gabe’s complacent eyes sparkled and snapped when he saw the “warm glow candle factory.” Fun times, like exponential growth modeled by sidewalk chalk and steps in the paking lot. Funny times, like Deadly Cobra vs Golden Dragon. There’s so much cluttering up my past: hoarded memories tumbling out of the closet.
Being Tzeitel and wearing makeup for the first time. Feeling high onstage and blushing and dancing and singing. Oh, seventh grade, how I detested Science Fair and how I despaired when I thought my experiment would fail. When I burst out crying after I spelled my first word wrong at State Spelling Bee, but miraculously went on to finals and won. Then to when I was little and loud in the hallways and Mr. Gero came out and yelled at us and I was terrified. Then how I grew to love him.
Oh, all these things I shall miss. I miss them now with nothing to distract me. But I shall live in the moment, and look to the future. School begins next week, and surely things will pick up the pace quickly. So God help me.
Ecclesiastes 7:10 “Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’ For it is not wise to ask such questions.”
Ecclesiastes 5:18 “Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him.”
Ecclesiastes 3:1 “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.”
Farewell. Farewell. Farewell.