Spring Symphonies

Colorful snippets from Spring 2024

It’s a complicated-looking term - grapheme-color synesthesia. Those with this diagnosis perceive numbers and/or letters with colors.

I’m troubled by numbers. Period. Seeing numbers in color would not help me understand them any better, I bet. The confusion would still be there, but with less stress.

It’s been a long time since I’ve discussed this with the only person I know who has it. I don’t recall it being a ‘problem’ for her, just a bit startling when she realized not everyone else sees numbers the same way she does.Why bring this uncommon topic up so randomly? Colors! I have been admiring the yellows and whites and creams that we are seeing now, thinking of the pinks and purples not far behind. Admiring with a bit of melancholy, perhaps. The forsythia, wild fruit trees and the redbud are here a bit early. Do you remember Betty Murdock? She was a Prospect-News Correspondence columnist for years. Her son Wendell shared that if Easter is early, spring will be, too…because Mom said.

That fits this year. Easter is the last day of March, and we’ve already had a colorful display for several days. When talk began of Doniphan being in totality for the April 8 eclipse, followed by the heads-up that we would have a ton of visitors, I was elated that we’d be sharing Ripley County during a vibrant spring display. But, we have a wide variety of flowers and trees adorning our rural landscape right NOW! Eclipse visitors will miss the colorful backdrop when they’re not looking up. Will the dogwood even still be blooming April 8?

Back to the ---thesias. I wondered if there are folks who have one connected to music. Dear Google said yes. It’s called chromesthesia. Anyone with this will see colors when hearing music.

I had sorta hoped there would be one the other way around - that folks who see colors would hear music. Walking through my yard, I wondered what instruments would introduce the forsythia yellow or the yellows of daffodils. Would the music crescendo when viewing a field of jonquils or a fence row of forsythia? What would the wild fruit trees sound like? Would I sometimes hear lullabies and at other times marches?

Mother Nature is directing one of her finest symphonies this year, more lively and bold than 2023's. By the time anyone reads this, the orchestra will be performing a different movement than the one playing as I type. “Spring: the music of open windows.” (Terri Guillemets - the pen name of Terri A. Woodhull, a quotation anthologist)