Something has happened to me two years in a row ... in the springtime, I get achy for color. Last year, I visited a green house that had row upon row of hanging baskets in bloom (long before the grass had turned green in Logan proper). As I stood among these flowers, it felt like I was eating up the color ... like a vitamin deficiency being corrected. I had a hard time leaving, but when I finally did, I felt re-energized.

This year, I walked by a talented friend's painting studio. It was packed with his work, intense tones, yellow with depth, bright turquoise blue. The same thing happened ... I felt like I was eating up the color. I wonder if color effects other people like this? My theory is that humans didn't evolve to survive a long Logan winter. Spring should be here by now, evolutionarily speaking. And my body is like, "What the heck?" This yellow painting is his, by the way. He is really a great artist. Check out his website.

I was reading in Diane Ackerman's "A Natural History of the Senses" about Synaesthetes (people who experience sensory crossover - like seeing music, or hearing color.) True Synaesthetes are rare, but I think we all have aspects of sensory crossover to some degree. Music effects a lot of people that way. Often, when I have my eyes closed, like when I'm falling asleep, sound comes across my eyelids as fireworks. According to Ackerman, this is a primeavial mistake in the brain, in which sensory centers have not fully separated. I wonder if great artists/writers can use that kind of crossover information.