I think I may have synesthesia. Sometimes emotions––shock, sadness, love, awe–– feel like they get interpreted through different sensory paths than would be expected. Grief turns my vision gray. I look around and it’s as if I’m living in a black and white movie. I know the trees should be green and the daffodils should be yellow. I can almost remember what green and yellow are. But I’m not exactly sure I can still see it. Grief feels like living inside the shades of gray.
Joy is tactile. Like a physical sensation, warm, as if my body is made of sunlight, and the source is inside me. Is that synesthesia? I can’t tell. Maybe it’s just me being a poet. Regardless, I like the way it looks when I write it down.
Heartbreak is a very distinct flavor of sadness. It doesn’t taste bitter or sour. The flavor of my heartbreak is sweet in my mouth. Not like, “Yum, ice cream!” because I don’t love it. I don’t like heartbreak in any flavor. I don’t want another scoop of it even if it’s not saccharine or cloying. The sweetness of my heartbreak is the contentment I felt in her arms; the particular skip of my heart when we would return to each other after being apart; the warmth when my love and desire was met with hers; the music of our song in harmony and how we kept singing together even after hitting a wrong note.
I can’t savor these sweet things though because my heart is breaking. The taste remains––the sweetness––even if I don’t want to taste it. Eventually the flavor of this sadness will fade away. While my heart is breaking though, I taste the loss and the sweetness at the same time.
Heartbreak doesn’t care that time is supposed to flow forward, from past to present to future. Heartbreak stands in the present and sees what was or what is, with the knowledge that the future doesn’t hold that. Heartbreak is being totally present in the moment while we walk away from each other.
Is it synesthesia to experience happily ever after like a dance? Or am I pushing too hard on this metaphor? I don’t care. I’m doing it. I thought we were going to dance into the sunset together. I thought we were going to tango, passionate, emotional, closely, in rhythm with each other.
I thought we were going to waltz and swing dance, mostly in sync, knowing sometimes we might step on each other’s toes. I thought we would try to dance a ballet as best we could and then turn it into interpretative dance when we forgot the ballet moves.
I thought we were going to do the hustle in a line in a group; do the bump, coming together and apart together and apart. We would appreciate each other’s attempts at Vogueing or doing the Robot, and not laugh too hard when one of us tried a Running Man.
I thought we would Hora together, although we both probably wanted to want to, more than we actually wanted to.
The thing about dancing is that it can be done alone or together. It can be done languorously or energetically, beautifully or with humor, ritually or improvisationally. I’m a pretty good dancer and I know how to dance alone. But I thought we were going to tango and for that I need a partner.
Is it synesthesia to imagine happily ever after as a dance? I don’t know. These are the things I do know though: In time I won’t taste this heartbreak. There are so many ways to live happily ever after. I can learn a new dance that fills me with life. And I’m definitely a poet.
There are no coincidences. This post was fully written when I read, “I will learn a new dance that fills me with life,” in Daily Affirmations, Strengthening My Recovery, yesterday. I gratefully borrow and acknowledge that here. As I write and post each week I’m learning so much. About myself. About allowing myself to be vulnerable and honest in my writing. About the lovely humans who inspire me or comment on my posts, as I tentatively dip my toes into personal essays and memoir. Thank you for reading. If you would like to make a one-time donation to support me in my writing, that would be great. Click the jar below (but I doubt I’ll use it for dance lessons). I hope my essays and stories, rants and ravings, make a difference for you in some way.
I'm very sorry.
I loved the line, "The flavor of heartbreak is sweet i my mouth." And that rang a bell.
Lovely.
So very sorry for this sensory experience you are sorting out, Linda. It takes so much to write it out and weave it together and find the throughlines this way. Wishing you peace.