A chronicle of tastelessness
My cold is rapidly cycling itself through my system. I'm done with the sore throat. Yesterday was all about the non-stop runny nose, which isn't too bad because at least stuff is still moving around in my head. Today it's been getting a little tight in my chest and the head is slowing up which means I'm headed for the worst torture on earth:
Losing my sense of smell and taste.
OK. I admit that it would be much worse to have both my arms amputated. Or to get mauled by a pissed off grizzly bear, which they tell me are extinct, but which I suspect are still out there waiting for me to stumble into them. Still, I used to want to kill myself every time I couldn't smell or taste because it's not only disorienting, but it means you can't taste your food.
Food is something I take pretty seriously. Not being able to taste it makes me not want to eat. Food becomes nothing but texture. This may surprise people who have never lost their ability to taste, but texture all on it's own is not particularly pleasant. You become acutely aware of the whole mastication process. (Very romantic, by the way) You start off with something that should be pleasing, and normally you would be tasting it's goodness as you experience it's texture. Now you are just aware of chewing tasteless cud.
Philip used to fear my colds; the inevitable pounding of fists into the walls; the screaming obscenities "God, why the F%*& have you deserted me A-G-A-I-N?? GAAAAAWWWWWWWW!"; the eventual resignation to cruel fate. Sort of. More like a passive aggressive stab at resignation. "Fine. I'll eat. But I'm not happy about this. You should stop eating so I don't have to see you enjoy your food. That's just mean."
If I had to choose between losing my hearing, my eyesight, or my sense of smell and taste? I'd choose to lose my sight. I love the beauty of vision. I don't take it for granted at all. But I couldn't live without music. I can learn to live in a dangerous world without sight. If my world was suddenly deprived of scent and taste I would become a pale shadow of myself. My instinct is more strongly connected to my sense of smell and my hearing. I can usually tell if someone is trying to bullshit me with my eyes closed. But how would I know the snow was coming if I couldn't hear the hush that precedes it? How could my spirit know how close we are to spring without that softer greener smell in the air that announces sap rising?
We all close our eyes to sleep. To rest in the warm sun. We all must rest our vision. We must shut out stimulation in order to hear ourselves against the din of the world. No one ever shuts off their hearing. Not really. We can limit sound to our own choice by putting headphones on. But there is no point in our entire lives that our ears are not hearing. We live with an incessant stream of sound. Without it we can't hear how far our predators are. Our ears are hearing while we sleep. We don't notice it, but they never stop. It reminds me of how close we still are to our earlier feral selves.
Some of us hear deeper than sound. This may explain why I have had so much trouble sleeping in my life. Sometimes I think I hear the turning of the earth, like the background ticking of a pendulum clock. Quietly counting the minutes of our lives underneath the mayhem. Steady. Sometimes I think I hear the heat of the sun.
Food is something I take pretty seriously. Not being able to taste it makes me not want to eat. Food becomes nothing but texture. This may surprise people who have never lost their ability to taste, but texture all on it's own is not particularly pleasant. You become acutely aware of the whole mastication process. (Very romantic, by the way) You start off with something that should be pleasing, and normally you would be tasting it's goodness as you experience it's texture. Now you are just aware of chewing tasteless cud.
Philip used to fear my colds; the inevitable pounding of fists into the walls; the screaming obscenities "God, why the F%*& have you deserted me A-G-A-I-N?? GAAAAAWWWWWWWW!"; the eventual resignation to cruel fate. Sort of. More like a passive aggressive stab at resignation. "Fine. I'll eat. But I'm not happy about this. You should stop eating so I don't have to see you enjoy your food. That's just mean."
If I had to choose between losing my hearing, my eyesight, or my sense of smell and taste? I'd choose to lose my sight. I love the beauty of vision. I don't take it for granted at all. But I couldn't live without music. I can learn to live in a dangerous world without sight. If my world was suddenly deprived of scent and taste I would become a pale shadow of myself. My instinct is more strongly connected to my sense of smell and my hearing. I can usually tell if someone is trying to bullshit me with my eyes closed. But how would I know the snow was coming if I couldn't hear the hush that precedes it? How could my spirit know how close we are to spring without that softer greener smell in the air that announces sap rising?
We all close our eyes to sleep. To rest in the warm sun. We all must rest our vision. We must shut out stimulation in order to hear ourselves against the din of the world. No one ever shuts off their hearing. Not really. We can limit sound to our own choice by putting headphones on. But there is no point in our entire lives that our ears are not hearing. We live with an incessant stream of sound. Without it we can't hear how far our predators are. Our ears are hearing while we sleep. We don't notice it, but they never stop. It reminds me of how close we still are to our earlier feral selves.
Some of us hear deeper than sound. This may explain why I have had so much trouble sleeping in my life. Sometimes I think I hear the turning of the earth, like the background ticking of a pendulum clock. Quietly counting the minutes of our lives underneath the mayhem. Steady. Sometimes I think I hear the heat of the sun.
Other than my constant fear of being violently murdered or finding murdered bodies, which a part of me believes is premonition, the thing I fear the most is getting tinnitus. Maybe it sounds silly to you. But crazy people like me hang onto our sanity by thinner threads than everyone else. A little thing like a constant ringing in our ears for the rest of our lives sounds like a great way to send me over the edge. I spend so much time trying to tune out irritating noises. What if you had an unpleasant noise in your head that nothing on earth besides death could silence? It would be spiritually exhausting. It would be hard for me to concentrate on anything outside my head.
So last night I spent in dreamy contemplation of my spring garden. I whittled down my seed choices to only 50% of everything Seeds Of Change is selling. It's hard to pick just five lettuce varieties when there are about thirty of them, all with intriguing names like: Sandrina, Bronze Mingonette, Red Deer Tongue, Brune D'Hiver, and Forellenschluss. My pulse quickens when I imagine all that is possible for my little patch of acid clay.
If you can't imagine yourself poring over seed catalogs debating the relative merits of one hundred different varieties of tomatoes, then you need to hightail it over to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's website to find out what an idiot you've been for having missed out for so long.
Food becomes something magical and an extension of your own flesh when you grow and make it yourself. That sounds disgusting. Which is why you should let Hugh tell you why you should be growing vegetables. BECAUSE IT'S FUN. What the long range benefits are. THE BEST FOOD YOU'LL EVER EAT; BETTER THAN DRUGS. How easy it is. EASIER AND LESS STUPID THAN GOLF. And what it means for the environment. WHO CARES WHEN IT TASTES SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT SWILL SAFEWAY IS SELLING YOU? Plus you won't feel as powerless in this big bad world. You'll feel capable and strong. You will have connected yourself to your heritage as a human. Because the only thing that separates us from most other animals is our ability to use tools, and to use tools to cultivate the earth. Without agriculture, you're just another monkey pissing in a tree.
Note: I just found out about Hugh's website from Jo from French Knots. I got all excited when I read his argument for growing vegetables because I'm a garden geek, but also because he says it so well I feel sure that anyone reading it will feel inspired.
So last night I spent in dreamy contemplation of my spring garden. I whittled down my seed choices to only 50% of everything Seeds Of Change is selling. It's hard to pick just five lettuce varieties when there are about thirty of them, all with intriguing names like: Sandrina, Bronze Mingonette, Red Deer Tongue, Brune D'Hiver, and Forellenschluss. My pulse quickens when I imagine all that is possible for my little patch of acid clay.
If you can't imagine yourself poring over seed catalogs debating the relative merits of one hundred different varieties of tomatoes, then you need to hightail it over to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's website to find out what an idiot you've been for having missed out for so long.
Food becomes something magical and an extension of your own flesh when you grow and make it yourself. That sounds disgusting. Which is why you should let Hugh tell you why you should be growing vegetables. BECAUSE IT'S FUN. What the long range benefits are. THE BEST FOOD YOU'LL EVER EAT; BETTER THAN DRUGS. How easy it is. EASIER AND LESS STUPID THAN GOLF. And what it means for the environment. WHO CARES WHEN IT TASTES SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT SWILL SAFEWAY IS SELLING YOU? Plus you won't feel as powerless in this big bad world. You'll feel capable and strong. You will have connected yourself to your heritage as a human. Because the only thing that separates us from most other animals is our ability to use tools, and to use tools to cultivate the earth. Without agriculture, you're just another monkey pissing in a tree.
Note: I just found out about Hugh's website from Jo from French Knots. I got all excited when I read his argument for growing vegetables because I'm a garden geek, but also because he says it so well I feel sure that anyone reading it will feel inspired.
Labels: garden, my cold, smell, taste, vegetables