Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Days of Color

I do not care for Mondays (see: loathe, detest, despise, ad infinitum...). Therefore, I am exceedingly glad it is a Tuesday, which is a very non-Monday sort of day.

Days of the week, to me, all seem to possess their own sort of personality; for example, Monday is a stressed, frazzled being, a Nervous Nellie, and continually mutters to herself, trying to remember that one thing she has forgotten to do - probably Algebra. Or some other frightful thing.

Ahhh, but Tuesday...Tuesday, on the other hand, is not quite smug, but very close. She has the self-complacent air of "Well, I'm not perfect, but at least I'm not Monday." She is relaxed, easy-going, and also prone to forgetfulness, though her's is more from an attitude of "Welp. I think Monday did Algebra yesterday; therefore, that knowledge should carry over today." Tuesday is also prone to philosophical ramblings, which aids and abets her lack of ambition.

The other day, I read the most amazingly colorful description of the days of the week, voiced by L. M. Montgomery's Story Girl.

 
 
The Story Girl, Sara Stanley, has the magical gift of storytelling, and the enchanted voice to match. During one particularly brilliant session of storytelling, Sara remarks to one of her cousins that "There ARE times when I can't think anything but gray thoughts. Then, other days, I think pink and blue and gold and purple and rainbow thoughts all the time."
 
"The idea! As if thoughts were coloured," giggled Felicity.
 
"Oh, they are!" cried the Story Girl. "Why, I can always SEE the colour of any thought I think. Can't you?"
 
"I never heard of such a thing," declared Felicity, "and I don't believe it. I believe you are just making that up."
 
"Indeed I'm not. Why, I always supposed everyone thought in colours. It must be very tiresome if you don't."
 
One of her cousins later remarked that "We thought the Story Girl was making fun of us. But I believe she really had a strange gift of thinking in colours. In later years, when we were grown up, she told me of it again. She said that everything had colour in her thought; the months of the year ran through all the tints of the spectrum, the days of the week were arrayed as Solomon in his glory, morning was golden, noon orange, evening crystal blue, and night violet. Every idea came to her mind robed in its own especial hue."
 
I literally heaved a sigh of jealousy. To be able to think, feel, describe in color. Story characters have all of the luck. Then I discovered that this is an actual "condition" (though I still crave it) called "Synthesia", in which the special beings among us literally see the world, sequences (i.e days of the week, numbers, etc.) in the most vivid and intriguing of ways.
 
Oh, oh...hang on a sec. I think I feel the condition coming on now...
 
Yes, indeed. I have had a colorful epiphany. Monday, the day we love to hate, is sort of a muddy-complexioned brown - yeah, that sounds right. And Tuesday? Tuesday is a veddy, veddy self-satisfied purple, shot through with glorious streaks of pink and orange.
 
And to the rest of you poor non-synthesia peoples: you are all pea-green. With envy. ;-)




2 comments:

  1. How beautiful! I love the Story Girl excerpt! I remember when I found out other people didn't think the way I do. It kind of astounded me... Then I realized how awesome it is that we are all unique in EVERY way not just a few. There may be similarities but no two people are the same - even in one area - all the way down the line.

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    1. Thanks so much, Tori! I love that book as well - I think I'm enamored with the idea of thinking in colors and emotions. What a gift! =) And that is so true...it's so neat that we all have the opportunity to give and take with our own unique perspective. Thanks for checking out my blog!

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