I rounded off my post yesterday by saying flippantly: I guess the real lesson is: don’t get caught up in stuff on Facebook. But for once I’m really glad I did just that, because it’s opened up a whole area that I can write about.
People (specifically at the moment my therapist, but in the past my brother) have asked me why I’m so open on my blog, why I share so much of myself on social media, why I don’t just write a diary and keep it private. I’ve thought about that myself, because of course it can be risky, the sorts of risks I’m not prepared to take in face-to-face conversation (maybe not equipped to, because I can never think fast enough to be able to speak my responses). Yes, sometimes I get irritated, often frustrated that meanings which seem clear when they leave my brain don’t enter someone else’s in the same way, and depressed when there’s no response at all. But occasionally there’s a spark of something that maybe leads somewhere else, to something interesting. Nothing worthwhile is ever achieved without some risk.
We always assume that other people think the same way we do because we can’t imagine any other way. I only started thinking about the visual/verbal thing when I shared an early draft of Single to Sirkeci with a couple of artist friends. One commented: ‘You don’t paint pictures in the reader’s head’. I was upset because I thought, well, I’ve only got what I wrote at the time, if I didn’t describe the places I saw when I saw them how am I supposed to do anything about that now? I got round the problem by looking at my photos and describing what I saw in them, but it opened up a whole conversation about visual memory, and how can you describe something you saw two years ago? I can’t even tell you what colour the door of the house opposite is painted, even though I see it every day (it’s black with two glass panels and a silver coloured knocker, if you’re interested – I just checked through the window).
Returning to the Facebook discussion, something that amazed me was people talking about imagining scents and tastes. How is that even possible? I’ve thought about describing scents and I can’t find any words – other than very basic ones like ‘sweet’ and ‘pungent’ – which don’t compare them to other scents – how would you describe the scent of a rose to anyone who had never smelt one? (‘Sweet and flowery’? How does it differ from lilac?) Or coffee, fresh bread, smoke, shit… you might describe a scent as being ‘like’ any of those things, but you can’t really create them in the mind of someone who’s never smelt them. As I sit here I can sort of conjure up the scent of, say, coffee, but only with an effort.
Mmm, coffee – maybe something is reminding me that it must be time for breakfast.