Being a writer changes the way you experience the world. You’re a student of the senses; you notice the way light curls when it lands on your arm, or the scent, texture and flavor of a honeycomb. You notice the lines of his torso, the vectors of her arms, the way he seems so reptilian you might check for scales while he sleeps, or the way her stretches are so lupine you begin to anticipate the full moon.
Or maybe those prone to sybaritic voyeurism become writers, artists, chefs, craftsmen, and connoisseurs by default, knowing no other way to bear a sensually-saturated world. I imagine it’s a little of both, and that by writing, by creating, we nurture our natural tendency to luxuriate in the physical. We stretch each tactile experience, each olfactory delight, each epicurean delicacy and visual enchantment, until it’s large enough to wrap ourselves in, and it becomes more than physical. It becomes metaphorical, philosophical, spiritual– we drape our characters in our discoveries, our curiosities, and we vicariously unravel existential complexities through them.
More than anything, we tell stories.
Will you tell me about three sensual details you noticed today?
Too true! And very well said~
For me, there has been a running commentary in my head since I was a little girl…a way of describing everything around me that happens in words. For me today, three that stand out were: putting on my perfume oil, a ritual of anointing myself like a Priestess in a long ago temple; indulging in a vegan Solstice cookie, tasting the chocolate on my tongue and trying to catch each crumb; feeling the slide of a satin skirt down my legs as I got dressed for the day, choosing each piece of jewelry with care~
This morning I hear the thin susurration of the heater as it struggles to warm my office. My tongue pulls back from the bitter edges of my coffee, until the liquid’s underlying sweetness is discovered. And, I notice the edge of my lip where warmth and softness end and the rough onslaught of winter begins.
Thank you for a lovely post that reminded me to stop and savor the day.
I don’t fancy myself a writer; I leave that to the beautiful word weavers such as yourself! However, some of the sensual details I’ve noticed today were:
The way the morning dawn bathed the skyline with a golden blanket against a milky sky. It’s always my favorite view, but this one was particularly intriguing~
A well-wrapped gift placed on my desk. Much care was taken into every fold, so much so that the paper hugged the contents ever so tightly like a mother clinging to her young. I still can’t bear to pull the paper off.
Tiny red berries dotting the holly bushes outside of my condo. They’re vibrant and rich, facing the frosty mornings with such a delicate grace, never once losing their luster.
I love this post, and I’m glad that there are writers such as yourself who can see these visuals and take the reader on a journey to another world using only the power of words!
The amount of softness and crunchiness in the sugar cookies I ate, as I am more partial to the softer ones.
The way the sparrow figured out a way to eat the suet from the basket, sneaky bugger. He figured he could perch on top instead of hanging from the side the way the wrens and woodpeckers do.
All the little seed bits littering the front doorstep. I’m still not exactly sure where they’re coming from (birds yes, but which tree?)
As I arrived at work this morning and parked my car, I looked the gap in the structure to where the wind blew through the trees, noting the randomness as it swirled through leaving no branch untouched. Although already late starting my day, I took a moment to simply experience and tried to formulate how I would write this particular scene, wondering all the while why a cold wind through the trees always evokes a feeling of melancholy and whether my sensory memory is enough to convey the same in writing.
- the movement of abdominal and back muscles against skin, skin against clothing while vertebrae shift back and forth like a waving pendulum up the spine, flexing and relaxing fibers until warm prickles of blood flooding back to formerly tense areas are felt and popping sounds resonate through the tube of the spine, echoing in my skull… stretching in my office chair :D
- the chilled, firm but soft, almost a bit stringy, very juicy flesh squeezed by tongue against upper dental plate, savoring aromatic bitterness in the back, sweetness in the front while the sides mainly experience the coolness, and a feeling like the entire aroma is drifting through my head to the tip of my nose … dinner time with cantaloupe fresh from the fridge!
- watching the long flame held horizontally moving over the white thin cylinder, the yellow-bright flickering accompanied by the low hiss of the lighter it originates from, blackening the wick until a second, vertical flame intersects the first one, rising up within it … lighting one of many candles this evening
:)
The way the ice slicks the bottom of my shoe sideways and the sudden unconscious flexing of muscles and tendons to catch my balance…
The way a song I’ve never heard before starts a slow simmer in my chest and a fire in my mind…
The eye contact slide with a nameless, blonde woman as I hold the door for her…
Wonderful post, good lady. You do interesting things with words.
Three sensual details? All right, I’ll bite.
- The snow was just starting to fall tonight when I got in my car, and there was the lightest dusting on my windshield. Not enough to obscure my vision, but just enough to suggest an even coating of stardust. It glittered and made my mundane garage door quite dreamlike. I admired it for a moment, but then scattered the galaxy of possibilities with a single slash of windshield wiper blades.
- The citrusy sweet smell of clementines persists on my fingers after peeling and eating half a dozen or so. It’s summery and lovely in an otherwise stark and dim cubicle farm.
- A coworker sold me a summer sausage his father-in-law had made this weekend, and I took it out of the office freezer just now. The weight of frozen meat in my hand impressed me, and I slapped one end of the forearm-length cylinder into my open palm. No better cudgel could I want, if it was necessary. Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.
Thank you! I would now go on this blog every day! Ivan
Your post was exquisitely beautiful. I read it twice because I liked your language so much.
Today I noticed:
The tears hanging on the edges of my daughter’s eyelashes reminded me of Paris.
The inside of our purple potatoes was so vibrant that I wanted to run it over my lips.
The cold seeping through the walls and window felt so invasive that I set the house alarm.
I love this.
I heard the caw of a crow this morning as I have for the past few weeks and wondered if this crow is trying to tell me something.
I filled the basket of my percolator this morning with fresh ground coffee and the smell was enough to make me anticipate my first sip.
The humming sound of my running dishwasher reminds me that we are lucky to have had enough food and drink to fill a dishwasher when others don’t have enough to fill a plate.