Online Valentines

  Valentine’s Day has long been one of my favorite celebrations. I adore its pink and red color scheme (even though I see the word “valentine” in green) and I’m quite fond of its emphasis on love and friendship. When I was a child, my sisters and I would sit at the kitchen table on…

Read More

Strange Days

It’s been a tough few months for me. I had the flu over the Christmas holiday, turning my 10 days of vacation into nothing but chicken soup and recuperation. My career as a massage therapist in the tech sector feels in peril while Twitter transits the “ugly adolescence” of corporate growth. And, a poem I’d…

Read More

Take a Hike!

  Join me for a synesthetic hike through San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury! Very few people are synesthetes; researchers in the field of neuroscience estimate less than 4 percent of the population has some form of entwined senses. But, even though synesthesia is rare, interest in this neurological phenomenon is rapidly expanding. Currently, there are numerous scientific…

Read More

Less Gore, More Gorgeous

Photo by Valentina Saduil I’m glad that Halloween is over. Once upon a time, it was my favorite holiday. When I was a kid, I’d spend weeks planning the perfect costume, trying to hit that sweet spot between spooky and beautiful. I would comb through my mother’s closet for dresses and accessories that could transform…

Read More

A Question That Can’t Be Answered

My mother Joan Mary Crowley (far left) in her nursing school dorm room, 1955. Today, October 7th, 2015 would have been my mother’s 80th birthday. While we struggled with most of the problems common to mother/daughter relationships, she was wonderfully supportive of my career in manual therapy. She encouraged me to attend a therapeutic massage…

Read More

Moon Over Miami

The American Synesthesia Association begins their 11th annual conference today in Miami. Over the next few days, synesthetes and the researchers who study synesthesia will come together at the University of Miami campus for a series of lectures and discussions. The papers presented include several focused on neuroscience research along with others that explore the…

Read More

Mirror, mirror…..

It’s been an exiting few weeks for MTS synesthetes! Erika Hayasaki’s brilliant article on Mirror-Touch Synesthesia (MTS) was published in Pacific Standard Magazine. The physician profiled in that story, Dr. Joel Salinas, had his experiences with MTS recounted in People Magazine. And, my personal essay on MTS as a massage therapy super-power was published this…

Read More

Confessing My Syns (Part 1)

For several months, I’ve planned to pen a series of essays about specific incidents from my life that illustate the complexities of mirror-touch synesthesia. I’ve written and then obliterated multiple opening paragraphs, and I’ve left my computer untouched for weeks. I’ve told myself I just haven’t had time to write; my summer’s been occupied by…

Read More