The Unsolicited Sensory Experience

I’m in the library, in my house, where I scamper immediately after having breakfast and sipping on coffee ever since the shelter-in-place order. My mother ventures here each morning when she is officially on the clock for at-home employment during the pandemic. I follow suit, in an attempt to engage more with my writing, consume news, and create possible career moves. The library is a small carved-out pentagon from a bird’s eye view, or even a small dog’s view as I sit on the floor. It is windowless, and smack dab in the middle of the upper foyer of our two-floor house, across from the landing that overlooks the never- enlightened Italian handcrafted crystal chandelier, showcased in the large bay windows that look onto the outside world.

The room’s ceiling has a large spotlight over the desk for ambient lighting, but the recessed lights are the source of brilliance. The library’s ceiling also provides the access point to an attic I have never seen because it for storage rather than inhabitants. This fact only exacerbates my childhood desire for a secret-space like the attic from Charmed, which housed family heirlooms, like The Book of Shadows. The room’s floor is the only one covered with commercial carpeting rather than hardwood. I always opt to sit on the floor, back against the bookshelf, laptop cradled on my lap, feet asleep, as my mother sits perched on the leather black chair behind the desk, aggressively tapping her keyboard and throwing pens down for dramatic effect. I don’t care for the sound effects, and I let it be known.

I’m in the library, because I feel like it is my alcove, my nook, and my right, as if declared so by the three framed degrees hanging on the wall with my name on them. The library has two printers, a fax machine, a landline phone, and two bookshelves. There is a stationary drawer-set with an array of staples, erasers, highlighters, pens, pencils, computer paper, and an alphabetized file cabinet for home-finances and miscellaneous paperwork. My medical file is far too thick from years of hospitalizations, and near-death experiences, diagnoses, and blood work: I am the student with the most detentions and complaints collected by the principal. It seems to contrast with the academic accomplishments.

The library provides me with visual cues: This is a space of seriousness. This is a space where one is meant to be productive. This is where intellect thrives. This is where you think lofty thoughts, create crafty projects, and carve your place into the world. This begs the question: which world are we speaking of? Are we speaking of the world that feels like it is falling apart?

There are five senses: the auditory, the observed, olfactory (smell and taste), and the tactile. With the strict stay-at-home mandate, sensory experiences are key to maintaining a sense of self beyond one’s endless stream of thoughts. I could attest to the counterintuitive feeling of overstimulation upon discharge from quarantine in its own right: three months’ of hospital medical unit, inpatient, and residential treatment for anorexia. My first day outside of the Long Island residential treatment was a flurry stimulatory experiences that would otherwise be considered mundane. The treatment center was a renovated chic and cumbersome large Long Island family home adjacent to a golf course that included meal plans with coconut and lime-spike quinoa, all-American peanut butter and jelly white bread sandwiches, and dreaded frozen vegetable lasagna on weekends in the chef’s absence. The day my parents came to pick me up, I first made a trip to Whole Foods Market. It was around the last week of summer in September, and just being in the parking lot was a lot to handle. My senses were akin to a newborn baby exiting the womb, subject to light, hands, negative space that left limbs flailing instead of tightly nestled in a fetal position, and noise.

The next morning, I awoke to the sounds that had haunted me in the past: my parents’ movements. My mom running the shower before 4 am, running down the stairs and then up again to collect whatever she needed to carry along. My dad also woke up before sunrise to go down into the basement and sweat it out. Even as I shut out that noise of movement, thinking about just how far I came with being at peace at not having to move my body every waking second, I could still hear car engines running outside. All of this stimulation reminded me of when I was a toddler, and the fear invoked by the toilet’s loud flushing noise during the evening. It was loud and scary. Later that morning, I told my dad I needed to purchase fruit to have with breakfast. I entered the driver’s seat, put the car in reverse, but realized I had forgotten how to operate a vehicle, backing my father’s car out of the driveway and immediately crashing into a tree. Everything was overtly stimulating.

So now, the stimulatory experiences are much the same. Let’s begin with hearing. The quarantine has unearthed newfound forms of communication. There is the socially distanced drive-by parade of cars that entail honking obnoxiously and yelping out of windows. At first, it was teachers reaching out to their students in the community, showing that in spite of remote learning, they did not forget the need to educate. Afterward, people took to their cars to celebrate birthdays, weddings, and acknowledgement of other milestones.

With spring’s arrival, the breeze causes the newly bloomed plants to bristle and the birds have begun chirping well before sunrise until well after sunset. More people have emerged outdoors, onto their front lawns. Kids, otherwise shuttled from school into a yellow bus or designated car, are now playing outdoors. They squeal, yelp, and chatter.

Smell: The aroma emanating from houses and wafting into the street are no longer solely in the vicinity of takeaway places. Now, one can smell meat cooking on grills, onions caramelizing, and confections baking in the oven. Even the aroma wafting from carryout establishments are more potent due to curbside pickup and the sheer volume of orders. Pass by a Dunkin Donuts drive-thru and one can smell their distinct coffee blend from a few yards away.

Taste is an experience that has also been exacerbated. With having to adapt to the circumstances, because of the unavailability of staple items included in one’s dietary preferences, many have had to make due with tasting new flavors. The sense of taste is heightened as one attempts to decipher notes of sweet, salty, tangy, and umami. Wearing masks that cover one’s nose and mouth is conducive to sitting with a lingering aftertaste. Furthermore, one’s appreciation of smell and taste can be heightened, especially if lost due to symptomatic coronavirus in which appreciation for your daily morning coffee is spiked when you can no longer detect its deceivingly robust yet mild fragrance and mouth its acidic bite.

Though we cannot embrace a friend, shake a healthcare worker’s hand, or even so much as elbow-bump due to the 6-feet of separation, tactile sensory experiences have been magnified. It’s a case of reverse logic in one scenario: Making an effort not to touch one’s face during the day has made our inner rebellious child want to forge ahead. Allergy season makes it difficult to not rub one’s eyes. Speaking of season, the very palpable seasonal transition into late spring and eventually summer, has caused us to perspire more. The touch of clothes on our body and its effect on temperature is exacerbated.  But in another respect, the mask makes direct contact with our face. Its strings caress our ears in a scratchy hug. Our skin may be sensitive to it and react.

Speaking (auditory) of mask, our vision is hindered but also a gateway for unspoken speak. We have become privy to eye signals, much like nodding or shaking one’s head. We can detect furrowed eyebrows, squinting, rolling, and so much more. We see ourselves on Facetime and Zoom, discerning features we had not before paid much mind to. We scan our supermarket aisles for anything we may need or want, shifting our gaze a million times per minute in order to make the trip as swift as possible so that more people can enter the establishment with less of a wait-time and also to spend less time in contact with others.

And then there is perceptive intensity, the sixth sense, or the mind. Our feelings are heightened, and while they too are valid, they are fleeting. We can no longer walk out the door and break off from the soul-sucking complexities of strained relationships by coalescing into crowds at the mall. All those articles for how to avoid conflict with family members during holidays, Band-Aid remedies, cannot stand up to this lengthy drawn-out stay with one another.

We can no longer nonchalantly walk down a sidewalk without having to be on guard, crossing the street every time someone passes by. Trips to the market or local essentials stores – think, Target – have become burdensome. It’s a grad bag of not knowing the waiting time to enter, the availability of items you want, and making sure not to prematurely dispose of your mask and gloves should you, on a whim, decide to go somewhere else before coming back home.

All of the above issues exacerbate our sense of self, value, and place in this world. We all know that there is a very real issue of mortality – people are falling ill, entering the hospital, suffering, unable to be with kin, and sometimes, unable to return to kin. We struggle with weighing the importance of our problems in comparison to the problem of a pandemic. The oftentimes-used psychology about others going hungry, or without another essential basic human need, in order to place our sheltered and fed bodies into perspective, is pervasive at this time. As a result, our minds struggle to grasp whether or not our problems truly are problematic.

In the midst of this global health crisis, I find myself drawing parallels to my own health crisis. In my own recovery, a driving force of hope and will to overcome lay in the “before.” There was a “before,” and there will be an “after.” Many of us have visceral sentimentality about the past – taking the train or plane to a place of discovery. For me, that was Manhattan. I remember being among throngs of people, sashaying and sidestepping foot traffic to my destination, gulping the outside scenes in thirst. I remember the past when I would look forward to some sort of plan for my upcoming birthday that I always had childishly conceived as a summer birthday, when in fact, the second week of June is 2 weeks’ shy. All of these feelings are heightened and warranted. Take note: They are not nonsensical. But also take note, that we are capable of imbibing so much experience simply through our senses, and that is a saving grace.