Tag Archive for: the senses

Stop! You’re Hurting My Eyes!

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By Lois Winston

One day when my oldest son was two years old, I was singing to him in the car when he covered his ears with his hands and cried, “Stop singing, Mommy. You’re hurting my ears.”

It turns out he was born with perfect pitch, while I was saddled with two tin ears. Ever since I failed to make the cut when I auditioned for the elementary school talent show, I’ve known my singing leaves quite a lot to be desired. I’m no Taylor Swift or Beyonce. Never was and never will be. I wouldn’t even qualify as a backup singer for a third-rate tribute band. However, I never realized until that moment just how off-key I was.

Lately, I’ve felt the urge to rant at car manufacturers for hurting my eyes the way my singing had hurt my son’s ears. Have you noticed the garish colors of so many new cars? Some are the equivalent of chalk on a blackboard, shrieking and shrill, while others can only be described as homages to the scatological. What were they thinking? We’re living in a world that bombards us 24/7, causing us to yearn for anything soothing, whether it’s soft clothing, comfort foods, or escapist fiction.

The psychology of color is big business. Color experts get paid big bucks to determine which colors should be used in everything from clothing to home décor to appliances to automobiles. If you’re old enough to remember the sixties (or have a penchant for anything mid-century modern), you know that harvest gold and avocado green were the two colors that reigned supreme back then. Do you think it was a coincidence that your mother’s appliances matched your father’s station wagon? Those color choices were dictated by people deemed authorities in the field.

Has psychology done an about-face? If the screaming oranges, greens, and yellows aren’t bad enough, the other group is awful in another way. I really don’t want to drive around in a vehicle that reminds me of the last time I changed a diaper or hovered over the porcelain throne with stomach flu.

I wish some knowledgeable person would tell me what in the world were these so-called experts thinking. I’m flummoxed.

How about you? What do you think about the colors of automobiles you see on the roads lately? Post a comment for a chance to win a promo code for a free download of the audiobook version of Drop Dead Ornaments, the seventh Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery.

 

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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

Sunrise, Sunset

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By Barbara J. Eikmeier

I once read that for health and prosperity a person should strive to watch two sunrises a year. I know there are some people who see two or three hundred sunrises a year. I’m not one of them. As for sunsets, I’m well-rehearsed on the shift of colors, time of day across all four seasons, and I know if the back yard is glowing pink in autumn (which means I have my back to the sun) it’s my cue to go out the front door for a “red sky at night” sunset viewing.

When I do see a sunrise (at least two per year) I’m amazed at how much more aware I am of the changing sky. Maybe light emerging from the darkness is more dramatic than fading daylight, but I think it’s the rarity of my sunrise viewing that causes me to notice the fine details.

One August morning I was leaving home early with a three-hour drive ahead of me. As I backed out of the garage, I caught the morning sun filtering through the trees creating a starburst of long sunbeams. 50 feet away, one of those rays cast light on a spider web, outlining it in perfect detail. It was far from me, yet, thanks to the sunrise spotlight, I could see the sparkle of dew drops on the silken web.

August sunrise

When my dad became ill a few years ago, I went to California regularly to help take care of him. Over the next year and half, while there, one of my duties was fixing breakfast. My dad liked his breakfast at 7 AM, and we weren’t talking about a bowl of cold cereal with milk. On the farm breakfast was a full meal and my elderly parents, as much out of habit as preference, still liked yogurt and fruit with eggs and bacon, or pancakes and sausage, or hot oatmeal every day. To have it ready and served on time I was up early and therefore saw far more than the requisite two sunrises a year.

Not an early riser by nature, I was grumpy in the morning and didn’t have much patience for cooking eggs and oatmeal before I was fully awake (I once reversed the amount of water with the amount of oats and ended up with inedible paste). My reward for getting up and making breakfast became watching the sunrise from my mother’s kitchen window.

As the seasons passed, while logging away the months of my dad’s declining health, I monitored the shift of seasons by the position of the sun coming up behind the barn. The bright orange orb of summer rose far on the northern edge of the distant Sierra Nevada Mountains out of my view. By 7 AM the summer heat was already a conversation for the day. By late summer, the sunrise had started its slide south, rising along the edge of the barn. In autumn and again in the spring, from that kitchen window, I had a straight-on view of the sunrise, the coral horizon accented with great Vs of migrating geese. During winter, I’d already be clearing the table before the sun, often shrouded with dense fog or streaked with scattered clouds, showed her face on the southern edge of my view.

 

Some mornings I stepped outside in my apron and bare feet to take in the wonder of the new day while snapping a picture. But most of the time I stood at that window and thought, isn’t that sunrise worth getting up for?

Are you a sunrise or sunset person? Do you make notes of dawn and dusk skies you’ve observed and use them to inform time of day in your writing?

Barbara J. Eikmeier is a quilter, writer, student of quilt history, and lover of small-town America. Raised on a dairy farm in California, she enjoys placing her characters in rural communities.