Perceiving dimensions

   I became aware as I walked this morning my tendency to perceive the world in negative ways, and wondered what might happen if I were to try to comprehend things differently.  I was aware that thinking about things as I do makes me feel bad about others and myself.
   I decided to try a quick experiment, squinting my eyes as if I was nearly asleep or high on marijuana. As I propelled forward, I immediately realized that I had a qualitatively different sense of space. It was beautiful and unexpected.
   Instead of feeling that things around me were static, they seemed to be moving, somewhat like being looked at through a kaleidoscope. The trees moved as I moved.
   As I think about it now, I imagine that if someone were to tell me about the sense I had of those trees as if they had experienced them like that, I would figure that the person had themselves become rigid; the trees had appeared to bounce due to the movement of the individual's gait.
   But that's not how it seemed. Actually, I had perceived that myself and my world had become less rigid, and I had the impression that the less I fixed my view, the less my views were fixed. And although it was frightening to know that things could feel so much less rooted, there was also something wonderful about the fact that the world could seem so different, even for only that moment.
   

The smell of my gloves

   In the trunk of my car there are perhaps four or five pairs of gloves that I use during the (sometimes chilly) early morning walks that I take daily in Golden Gate Park. Although I wear the same old stained, Reebok sneakers daily, I do prefer to try to match my gloves in some manner to either my clothing, the weather, or both.
   The gloves that I generally wear on the more mild days are a neutral grey (one of which is shown below), and which I often notice have an odor which is at once familiar and murky. Although I'm not certain, and the association certainly may be misplaced, I believe that the smell reminds me of the blackberry and raspberry jelly candies that my Grandma Jean would have available for us kids when we would visit their home in Jamaica, Queens.
   I find it quite interesting that this fabric, which is made of an acrylic, nylon and wool blend, should remind me of these candies, and wonder if perhaps what I am reminded of is actually of that same grandma's basement (which had a lot of wool clothing, moth balls), one floor below the candies. It's certainly possible that I have attached the association to both levels.
   Whereas I normally write in these blogs to try to better understand my feelings and thoughts, sometimes, as now, I feel the need to elucidate for myself my associations only to give them possibilities. Rather than looking for answers, I find that these wonderful and often perplexing associative mental links make my existence richer. I write in part to understand some of these things better, and to hopefully, better realize the depths of these kinds of wonder.

If only you could smell it from there