Sensible questions
I remember recess at my grade school in Milwaukee. They’d barricade both ends of the street, which then became our playground. I remember candy pencils and pretzels and the smell of the breweries. Friction tape, my army surplus shoulder bag, the lumberyard, plums, pork chops, the dry cleaners. Sometimes, a whiff of something, a taste, a sound, a texture or a shape will send me hurtling back in time like Tooter Turtle to very real moments and places. Then, Mr. Wizard the lizard intones, “Trizzle, trazzle, truzzle, trome, time for this one to come home” and I’m back here, now.
1. When’s the last time you smelled something that took you way back? What was it? Where did it take you? Was it good or bad?
2. What do you love touching? What do you hate touching?
3. How visually oriented are you? Do you notice crooked pictures? Do you get transfixed by a freckle? Are you oblivious to a near-blind level or hyper observant?
4. What sounds send you ‘round the bend? You know, like you can’t be in the same room with a wind chime or canary. What sounds just make you melt with ecstasy?
5. Do you take care of your taste buds and treat them to exquisite experiences? Or do you kill them with tobacco, cheap beer and fast food? When’s the last time your taste buds said, “Wow, thanks, man!”
6. Nobody wants to be blind; I would expect that would be pretty major to deal with. So, I’m just going to exempt that sense from this question: What is the one sense (of the remaining four) you would never want to live without? Why?
7. Is there a sixth sense? Like ESP or seeing dead people?
swearingen said:
1. Smells I long for: the smell of that 60’s white peppermint school paste with the little stick inside for spreading it (there was always some kid who was eating it…was it you?); the smell of a freshly mimeographed worksheet (60’s “huffing”); the smell of Sea Breeze antiseptic. Whatever ailed us as kids, my grandpa swore by the stuff…”Put a little Sea Breeze on it!” he’d say. Didn’t matter if it was a skinned knee, a bee sting or a brain tumor, just rub some on. I love the smell of sweet grass and cedar.
2. I love touching: warm sand, smooth stones, clay, a bristly shaven head, soft warm skin, wooly woven velvety suede velour anything, anything squishy (the goo-ball toy things, especially if they have the plastic maggots or worms in them). I hate touching greasy food with my bare fingers and germ-ridden public surfaces (public restroom door handes, for instance).
3. Does anyone else think most people hang their pictures too high? Anyone else notice that you can tell a man’s age from how high he wears his pants…like counting the rings inside a tree trunk? If they’re up to his neck, you know he’s in his nineties. Used to be much more visually oriented, but less so with ongoing visual challenges. Much more tactile these days.
4. Sounds that send me round the bend: people’s voices…the too loud, too shrill, too damn chipper early in the morning voices; certain songs (Raspberry Beret by Prince, anything by Barry “Big Finish” Manilow); casino racket, bagpipes. Sounds that make me melt with ecstacy: gentle rain and distant rumbling thunder, moving water, certain wind chimes, hearty laughter, certain people’s voices, gypsy music.
5. My taste buds love to dance. Spicy, cheesy, sweet n sour, crunchy, smooth, salty, tangy, dark chocolatey taste buds. Last big thank yous from my taste buds were a cranberry pecan chicken wrap and a roasted chicken with inserted cored apple, rosemary, thyme, and butter slathered under the breast skin (recipe courtesy of a palate-pleasing pal o’ mine).
6. Nobody wants to be blind. True dat. The following is a poem I wrote last fall regarding just that. A poem (one of several)about my experiences with Dr. Tad Krolicki of the Eye Clinc of WI (I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I shared):
Eight-Ball Hyphema In the Side Pocket
“We’re turning the corner,” says Tad Krolicki, aka “Spartacus” the surgical magician. Armed with his 6-gauge canula and trusty tube of Heal-All, once again we face the operating room together,(with only a minor delay of dealing with a family dog dilemma).
My trusted optical partner and me, with assist from the saints. “No saints, no surgery“. Saint Jude Thaddeus/Saint Thaddeus Jude, the saint of lost causes, the saint of the impossible.
We know and believe that the impossible is possible.Turning the corner on CMV-retinitis induced, immune-recovery uveitis, detached retina, chronic hypotony, eight-ball hyphemas,rubeosis, and erratic eye pressures.
Soon the hazy vapor on the mirror inside my eye will clear. This I am hopeful of once again.
Turning the corner,
dodging the glass eyeball,
delaying the search for the bionic eye,
prolonging the need for a seeing eye dog.
Eyeballs are a scary business…
whether you’re on the receiving or the repairing end. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Optimistic realism.
We have managed to beat the odds, making the impossible possible over and over again.
And though Dr. Krolicki is faced every day with the impossible… cases which are the worst of the worst, the end of the line,
often with little hope of a functional finality… day after grueling day, he maintains his unwaveringly steady,
buoyant, witty, optimistic and contagiously humorous self, which helps to heal the heart and mind of those whom he treats, which in turn brings healing to the ailing eye.
Regardless of how packed the waiting room is, how many walk-ins walk in, or how challenging the challenges are, it is amazing to watch as he weaves through his list of patients in a well-choreographed dance of exams, treatments and dictations, without ever missing a beat.
He is not fearful of hugging a hug,smooching a cheek, or joking an off color joke. He obviously was sleeping through “Professional Detachment 101” in med school. He laughs easily and genuinely and is not afraid to show compassion or spiritual connectedness for those who come to him with the fear of loss of vision and freedom, and hurt in their hearts.
For that I am forever grateful.
And if and when that day comes, when this battle-weary eye has had enough,I will certainly grieve… but I will find peace with it all,knowing that we have fought the good fight, that we pushed the envelope to the absolute limit, that we have reveled in the realization of the resilience of eyes and bodies and human spirit.
That there has been this trusted friend by my side through it all. It makes all the difference.
Spartacus, I salute you!
7. Yes, some (many, if you take the time to find them, and/or they find you) have a 6th sense…seeing beyond this world into the spirit world, seeing dead people, seeing future events, spontaneous healing that is nothing short of miraculous.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:51 pm #
Cheryl Mathis said:
1. I have these moments all the time. The most memorable scent moment happened in college, when I was brought to my knees by the scent of a certain perfume waiting for me in a new classroom. The last time, it was probably when I opened up my son’s bag of homemade play-dough.
2. I love touching clean baby skin. I HATE touching raw meat of any kind.
3. I am sometimes hyper-observant. It was my job for years to notice style errors. An extra space, copy out of alignment by a hair, an off-color picture, the too-prominent bulge of an athlete’s package in a photo, etc. It still happens now.
4. I hate the sound of nails on a chalkboard, car alarms and nagging women. I love the sound of giggling, classical piano, and the crunch of fallen leaves under my shoes.
5. My taste buds are an afterthought. I cook to provide sustenance. If something actually tastes good, I do a little happy dance. Certain ice creams can send me to the highest heights of ecstasy, though.
6. Touch. I do not want to live without touch. Ever.
7. Yep. My sixth sense only goes as far as a very deep sense of intuition, but I’m content with that. I know the rest exists the same way I know some people can understand calculus and can speak foreign languages, but I can’t.
September 15th, 2008 at 3:59 pm #
Jill Knetter said:
1. That’s a tough one…I made chocolate pudding last night, and when I smelled the mix it took me back to the days when my mom used to have an in-home daycare at our house…me and another girl always liked to make chocolate pudding at we did the “smile test” to see if it had thickened enough - we pulled the whisk out and put it back in three times to make a smiley face, and if it stayed the pudding was ready. It made me laugh to remember that, because I still use it.
2. I love touching my dad’s chin when it’s stubbly, my cats’ ears, my hair when it’s dry and soft, my satin bedsheets, soft clothing (particularly sweaters), and my faux down comforter.
I hate touching greasy things, fish, wool, the steering wheel in my car when it’s hot, raw meat, and cold metal.
3. I’m extremely visually oriented. I almost always notice little details (though admittedly some obvious ones elude me), like a thread hanging off of someone’s shirt or if something isn’t hanging straight.
4. I hate the sound of things scraping against the hard frost on the inside of the freezer…and I hate it even worse when somebody is doing it with their fingernails. I don’t know why, but that just gets to me like nothing else.
I really like the sound of snoring, which I realize is extremely strange, but allow me to explain. When I was little my bedroom was across the hall from my parents’. If I had a nightmare I’d wake up terrified, but then I could hear my parents snoring and it calmed me down. It was like that was the reminder I needed that I was in my room at home and safe. I also love the sound of a heartbeat, though I can’t pinpoint quite why.
5. I take good care of my tastebuds. I think the last time I ate something that really stood out to me was on last when I had my mom’s banana bread. That is one of my absolute favorite things, and nobody can make it like she can - myself included.
6. Hearing. I don’t think I could stand it if I couldn’t hear music or heartbeats or laughter again. So much of my life revolves around what I can hear. It would be different if I were born that way and didn’t know what I was missing, but I do, and I’m not sure I could live without it.
7. I like to think so. I’m really good at predicting people’s reactions to things (not that I’ve never been wrong, but it’s a very rare thing). I think everybody has something weird that they can do that is special and could be considered a sixth sense.
September 16th, 2008 at 11:57 am #
Jill Knetter said:
In #5 that should say “was last week”.
September 16th, 2008 at 11:58 am #
Jane Neal said:
1. Your olfactory is your strongest memory sense, so there are so many scents that take me RIGHT BACK THERE. An indescribable scent that comes on some autumn morning transports me to grade school. I love the smell of fresh mown grass, imminent rain, lilac… fresh-baked cookies, chocolate melted with butter…
2. I love the touch of someone’s hand in mine, especially a child. I don’t want to dispose of the lovely gifts my cat occasionally leaves on the stoop, but who does?
3. I tend to notice the minute details and miss the big picture.
4. I cannot abide the sound of metal scraping. Forks against knifes (metal plates are torture), metal hangers against a metal clothes rack… I like the sound of the birds at twilight and the cicadas in the summer.
5. I enjoy lots of different ethnic cuisine… last week the Greek food I had in Milwaukee was exquisite.
6. If you can’t smell, you can’t really taste, so those go hand in hand. But I think I’d rather lose my hearing than my sense of touch.
7. I think thought waves are like radio waves and some people are very good receptors and some are better transmitters. I think if people are particularly in tune, they’ll have moments of shared thoughts.
September 16th, 2008 at 3:04 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
1. I think Jane is right. I actually revisit times through smell. Recently I picked up a volleyball that Jackie taught me to be a setter with for a tournament on bradford beach in Milwaukee. Through that one smell, I could smell her again. It was awesome.
2. Baseballs. Hershey. My hockey stick.
3. I am colorblind. I learned to move beyond that.
4. Acoustic guitars playing cover songs.
5. As a vegetarian, I think I do okay.
6. No idea.
7. My friend Matt died when I was in 7th grade. He showed up again for me when I was in need in 8th grade. And I will always thank him for helping me get through that year.
September 16th, 2008 at 3:18 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
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October 1st, 2008 at 2:26 pm #