That’s What I See

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I have synesthesia. There are many different forms of it. Mine is the kind where letters and words and sometimes numbers are colors. It’s called Grapheme-color synesthesia. I haven’t learned all of the applications of it yet. I don’t know how to apply it in ways to help me remember or associate beyond the feelings the images in my head give me. I do think, though, that it has enhanced how I see the world.

I’m grateful that I can see color. It’s even more important when the color I see is associated with words and numbers. My brain connects them with emotions. My heightened use of color in the world I see guides me to the brightness in the gray, the calmness in the vivid, and the hidden glitter in all the cracks. I see the softness in New York City, the vibrant beige of sand, and the flecks of personality in my friend’s eyes. When color crosses over, the world opens up.

My synesthesia tilts the world in different directions. Calendars and their association with time show up for me as a winding matrix of changing experiences. Mathematical formulas have movement and words capture entire brilliant pictures. When words can be worth 1,000 pictures, life moves so uniquely and so freely.

This is how I see letters, numbers, and some words:

As I mentioned, I don’t yet know all the ways synesthesia can work for me. I do know that by letting my mind use it, I see beauty in the world with love, passion, and creativity.

Sometimes “crossing the streams” leads to the realization that the power of my mind is where joy can live. I don’t let the colors or the tilt in my world they create exist as an obstacle or as something I have to overcome. It’s a gift that will lead to more lessons in color. My appreciation for art movements and music are heightened. I don’t feel left out, I feel the color and life all around.

You don’t have to have synesthesia to realize a life in color. It has simply helped me be more open to a world that has so much in it to experience. What I see is a world of twisting, turning, bright, but sometimes muted stories. Stories of living in joy and loving through pain with all of the changing spectrums. I don’t know all the places I will go, but I know they will be in brilliant moving pictures where words take me there in full color.

My life in brilliant color.