Shel Graves' Sensorium

Taste: whipped cream and berry compote Sounds: Pink Pony Club and Portuguese Sight: pink beet juice Touch: a ball Smell: seven chakras incense Intellect, ideas, and dreams: an evening ritual

While I didn't do as much journaling this year the senses I recorded were standouts. Memories include the Solarpunk party and solar UFO, my solarpunk books on the shelves of We Be Bookin’ library, the French student's art project, lovely clients with matching names Leo, Theo and Luna, Runa, and some fun concerts in Everett Coffin Break and Lene Lovich.  Taste of the year: biscuits and gravy Morning Glory Cafe and Bayside Cafe Sounds of the year: a din of friends; orchestral and choir music - what we create together in community Smells of the year: pine, sea air  Sight of the year: the California Coast; blue seas, golden beaches  Touch of the year: swimming on NYE (last year and this) Intellect, ideas, and dreams: Totally Awesome Game Weekend and Stanford Inn by the Sea --canoeing with dogs  Quotes of the year:  “We are creatures built for joy. At the very saddest of funerals, we can hear a funny story about our lost beloved, and, God help us, we laugh. We ...

Taste: Nocino; Gingerbread and Maple Cranberry Bundt cakes; chocolate  Sound: harp, cello, flute  Smell: cake, sugar  Sight: wiggles  Touch: moist cakes and breads, spongy  Intellect, ideas, and dreams:  the flowers of the alphabet Grateful for: wiggles and play

Taste: coconut curry, jalapeno pizza, raspberry chocolate Sound: barking, howling, hissing; punk rock  Smell: hairspray; pitch black and a flashlight  Sight:  a solar-powered UFO Touch: wires; soft fur  Intellect, ideas, and dreams: "The Grief of the Pasha," an 1885 painting by Jean-Leon Gerome; dreams of vertical space and ladders and walking in the darkness but finding a light "I give thanks for the wise qualities of the evergreen trees that have stood by me this day: may you show my show my own heart can be evergreen and growing through winters of doubt and darkness." — Caitlin Matthews  Grateful for: directions and driving safely through the rainy night; padding

Taste: cranberry spice Sound: Coffin Break Smell: patchouli Sight: curly fur; pink belly; lights reflecting on farmland (flooding) night view Touch: wires; soft fur  Intellect, ideas, and dreams: "In the green morning / I wanted to be a heart. / A heart." Federico Garcia Lorca, "Ditty of First Desire”; frustration; nostalgia Grateful for: poetry, nature, dog on lap, Sam, new experiences

Taste: freeze-dried strawberries and raspberries strong and tart  Sound: Lux, Rosalia; clanging; harp, cello, choir  Smell: pine  Sight: a buff cat sits beside you; paws; darkness  Touch: clamping  Intellect, ideas, and dreams: large red frogs; mixing kinds of pasta;  "We are creatures built for joy. At the very saddest of funerals, we can hear a funny story about our lost beloved, and, God help us, we laugh. We can stagger out of an appointment where a person in a white coat has given us news we think we cannot bear to hear, and still we smile at the baby in the checkout line...This is who we are the very best of who we are.“ — Margaret Renkl, The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year   "Apocalyptic stories always get the apocalypse wrong. The tragedy is not the failed world's barren ugliness. The tragedy is its clinging beauty even as it fails. Until the very last cricket falls silent, the beauty-besotted will find a reason to love the wo...