synesthesia
i do not have synesthesia but i get an inkling of what it is like in spelling sometimes.
grey and gray are very different words: gray is a crayon and it is ashes, it is concrete
and definable. but grey is the color of the sky and water; it is nebulous and fluid, it is
sad and soothing and a friend. gray is the color of cigarettes you don’t want to smoke
any longer, it is the color of the radiator, of a factory. but grey is the tendrils of smoke, in
rivulets or in a great huge arc across the sky; it is the rivers and the lakes, the ocean,
drifting through the windows in its sweet salt wash.