interdisciplinary artist, author, and researcher exploring synesthesia, perception, and neurodivergence
It’s Earth Day and my dining table/art studio is covered with damaged and discarded books. Some of them have broken spines, others have been a canvas for crayons and stickers. Many of them have been cleared out of school libraries because they no longer meet curriculum goals, their bar codes slashed with red pen. One…
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Today is April the 14th. Sometimes referred to as “Ruination Day”, this date always makes me think of the gorgeous, melancholic Gillian Welch song linking three early spring tragedies. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865. The Titanic struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912, before sinking in the wee hours of the next…
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Chromesthesia is a form of synesthesia in which sound gives rise to involuntary experiences of color, shape, and movement. Sometimes referred to as “colored hearing,” a person with sound to color, shape, pattern, or texture synesthesia might perceive a friend’s voice as a looping blue ribbon. A mourning dove’s coo may flicker emerald at the…
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I woke this morning to find a message from the editors at Ad Anima, the literary journal published by the medical school at UC Irvine. They shared a link to my personal essay “Mirror,” which appears in volume 2, issue 1. Ad Anima is hosted by eScholarship, the open source academic platform created by the…
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I hallucinate. These forced perceptions come to me only at night and are, at times, terrifying. Sometimes, right as I fall to sleep, I open my eyes and see large objects that look like multilegged mutant starfish. They dangle in the air above my head shimmering and swirling, their bodies crazed like pottery. They appear…
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My partner and I like to play the Spelling Bee game in the New York Times. We have a strategy; I try to solve the pangrams while he picks away at the other words on the list. It’s typical for us to learn an unfamiliar word every few puzzles, often from the field of ornithology.…
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It’s been a few years since I’ve had an ocular migraine, but the flashing lights and zigzag crenellations paid a visit this past Saturday. I was helping my friend Julia with a gorgeous headband she’s creating based on an ancient Assyrian headdress when the first flickers appeared in the periphery of my left eye. I…
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One of the people I love most in this world celebrates a milestone birthday today. Her name is Lisa, and although we live a continent apart, she is in my heart and on my mind every single day. Lisa is funny, kind, and just kooky enough to join me in odd adventures, like spontaneous chocolate…
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