Yummmm

I was diagnosed with synesthesia after I scared the hell out of my students and two teachers. It was a fun day.

While I write I make mental note of what helps me get my brain into gear so I can share it with my students. Most of my suggestions work really well for the majority. The day I told them to 'taste their words' I got a whole lot of weird looks but only one student was ballsy enough to ask questions. Questions like "What does that even mean?"

I started explaining what I meant. I really didn't get anywhere. More confused looks and more questions.

I had no reason to assume they didn't experience words the same way I did. I'd lived my entire life tasting words when I read or wrote them, using it as a technique for choosing the best words to fit my desired meaning. As long as I can remember, and I assume since the moment I began to talk, I've tasted words. Since there was never a time when this didn't happen I had no reason to wonder if it was odd. I had no basis for comparison. We don't question things that have always been; we only question things that change suddenly in our minds or bodies. I would have been terrified if I'd stopped tasting words one day because then I would have assumed something had gone wrong. That's how completely this was an accepted normalcy for me. Its absence would have sent me at a hell-bent-for-leather pace to the doctor.

Long story short, the students finally convinced me they had no clue what I was talking about. Two teachers came in to talk to me, and catching part of the discussion, they assured me they didn't understand what I meant either. So I did what any good teacher would do: I looked it up. And that was pretty much that.

A was diagnosed a few weeks later after some testing. The doctor, who was endlessly entertained by me, having never seen a patient with this fairly unique condition before, still calls a few times a month. Just to see if anything new and weird has happened. He was almost giddy the day I sat in on a science class and the mention of the word 'doldrums' nearly made me gag. It tasted briny and bitter, right on the very back of my tongue. Still does, as it turns out. Eww.

It makes me down-in-the-gut sad I can't teach students to taste words. Short of fusing things in their brains that became properly separate a few months after birth, there's no way I could share this writing technique with them. Which sucks, honestly. Finding just the right word, for me, is a visceral reaction to an intellectual experience.

It's effing awesome.