When eleven-year-old Hannah finished one of the songs she had practiced for her piano lesson, she pointed to a particular section in the musical score and said, \u201cThat measure sounds like yellow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I looked quizzically at my granddaughter. \u201cThe music sounds like yellow?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She nodded and went on to explain that she and her younger brothers had been assigning colors to things. She gave the days of the week as an example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMondays are blue. Light blue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cInteresting,\u201d I said. \u201cWhat else?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFridays are green.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGreen as in\u00a0go<\/em>?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes. Fridays are green\u2026and skinny.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I gave her comments a lot of thought and then finally turned to Google to see what I could learn about senses triggering other senses. It\u2019s an actual thing, called\u00a0synesthesia<\/em>. Webster defines it as\u00a0a subjective sensation or image of a sense (as of color) other than the one (as of sound) being stimulated. Wikipedia says it\u2019s where stimulation of one sense results in unexpected stimulation of a second sense. It can cause a person to experience a color when listening to certain music\u2014thus explaining Hannah\u2019s sensing yellow because of a section of music. In a similar way, words can trigger the sense of taste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s no surprise then that Hannah said of the six bookmarks she made for my birthday, they were for \u201call the delicious books\u201d I\u2019m reading. The bookmarks, strings with beads at each end, were of different lengths and colors. The shortest, nine inches long, displayed blue beads and a tiny white seashell. Next in line, at eleven and three-quarters inches, came one in turquoise and green shades, anchored by a small silver fish. Then came the bone marker at twelve inches, beads in brown and ivory made out of, if not pieces of bone, its closest match. And then came the purple horse-charm marker, at fifteen and a half inches, followed by the camel-charm marker in shades of purple at sixteen inches. Finally, came the starfish marker, measuring sixteen and a half inches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Friends asked if a book\u2019s genre determined the bookmark I chose to use. Nope. Maybe my senses aren\u2019t all that sensitive, since the length of the marker is my biggest motivation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dangling things disturb me. They\u2019re not neat and orderly, in a prescribed place. So, I\u2019ve chosen the bookmark that most closely fit each book I\u2019ve read, leaving only the beads exposed and none of the string to swing about in unwieldy ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I never have liked loose ends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When eleven-year-old Hannah finished one of the songs she had practiced for her piano lesson, she pointed to a particular section in the musical score and said, \u201cThat measure sounds like yellow.\u201d I looked quizzically at my granddaughter. \u201cThe music sounds like yellow?\u201d She nodded and went on to explain that she and her younger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14027,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14026\/revisions\/14027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}