My friend Sabrina, who you are beginning to know quite a lot about, went to France recently. She wanted to send me a postcard but due to her impossibility to access Internet, she couldn’t. So she gave it to me when I saw her last week.
Yay for the pretty violins!
Yop, that’s what black and white text looks like to a visual synesthete.
And, if you’ve clicked on the postcard to read it and know me even just a little, you know there is a story behind this.
At first, Sabrina wondered if people reading my blog actually believed she existed. Something to do with me making her sound so awesome. Now that she has her own blog and you can all see she doesn’t sound like me, the problem should be solved. Or is it?
A few minutes later, Sabrina asked me to send her my address so she could send me a postcard while out of the country. The two ideas somewhat merged into one.
I thought it would be funny if she wrote me a postcard representative of how she perceives letter. As you might know, synesthesia is a neurological condition that causes some people to connect things that aren’t supposed to be related. Wires are touching. For Sabrina, it means that letters and numbers appear in an array of colors. For other, it means a taste also feels like something. Or that a letter has a sound. Possibilities are endless.
Thus, she wrote me a synesthetic postcard so I could blog about it. We also decided that her postcard would be about the fact that I would blog about it. We’re French so we like to do mise en abîme. We added the concept of saying a little “Hi” to my fellow NaSties (fellow NaStyRoMo participants) because I talk about them a lot (love ‘hem) and they heard about her a few times (love her too).
See, that’s what happens when you put Sabrina and I on a street corner waiting for the bus.
There you have it: a whole blog post about a postcard that was never posted before it was posted in this post!
And you might have learned something, too! 😉
The Writeaholic's Blog 
June 24th, 2010 at 7:18 am
Wow, what a beautiful post card, both front & back! I think I’m going to show it to some people here at work! Pretty neat!
June 24th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Thanks! I’m sure Sab will be happy to read your comment! 😉
June 24th, 2010 at 11:57 am
I especially love the violins!
June 24th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
I started to learn to play. Unfortunately, I had to prioritize things in my life. I still fiddle sometimes.
June 24th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
MissAheila–it looks like you have a good friend, there. 😉 I’m surprised no one has ever written a synesthete character into a novel, TV show, or film (or maybe they have and we just recognized the symptoms and labeled them as something else)
Hello-o-o-o Miss Sabrina! (waves)
June 24th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Well, as far as I know, it is fairly rare. Suzanne mentionned a book one time on the DS, a YA called “A Mango-Shaped Space”. I’ll have to read it someday.
And I wrote one in the short play I entered in the AW Playwright Contest. I think you read it. “Enlightment”?
June 24th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Hello mister ^^ Glad to meet you ^^
Sab xx
June 24th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Have you read “Born on a Blue Day” It’s a memoir by an autistic savant (much like Rain Man) who has color-grapheme synesthesia. He also has (can’t remember what the call it) where he sees numbers as shapes – and that’s how he does math so easily.
It’s a fascinating read.
June 24th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
oh man, that was full of typos. That’s what I get for commenting via my phone.
June 24th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
But you also get a big smile from me because I like comments. Maybe it cancels each other out! 😉
June 24th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
No, I haven’t read it. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. It does sound like a fascinating read!
June 24th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
I got the book last year and my brother borrowed it ^^ I’ll ask it back and lend it to you, if you are curious about it ^^ The book is a quick reading, then in two hours you’ll be done with it.
June 24th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
That is amazing that Sab sees the printed word in colors. Her postcard is too beautiful to be trusted to the post office for delivery. Thanks for sharing. Mise en abîme? From the abyss?
June 24th, 2010 at 6:20 pm
It’s intriguing isn’t it. I’ve been trying to find especially ugly words, color scheme-wise, to write to her. *evil grin*
I cannot believe an English Lit. guy doesn’t know about mise en abîme. Unless there is a translation the Internet wasn’t able to give me.
Literally “placing into the abyss”, the mise en abîme is a process in which a story is written within the story and so on. Like Russian dolls. Or the reflection of an object between two mirrors. *laughs* I write a blog post about a postcard saying I write a blog post about a postcard…
June 24th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
I know the term. I didn’t think the story of the postcard fit the concept entirely. Not intending to be too critical, lol.
June 24th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
Ah! I wasn’t sure the term was clear so…
It’s not the best mise en abîme but it is one. Sab didn’t have the space to write it all on the postcard. 😉
June 24th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
The water colored violins are lovely. This is so interesting. Hello Sabrina. Do you see a different color for each of the letters of the alphabet?
June 24th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
She wrote the postcard with as exact a representation of what she sees as color pencil allows. It doesn’t show up perfectly on the picture but yes, every letter is a different color. 😉