When I went down to the boardwalk for this assignment, I realized how wonderful it is to close your eyes and just FEEL! I walked along the rocks (eyes open, so that I wouldn't trip and fall) and sat on a cool, rock with a gritty texture. I let my senses take over as I sat, eyes closed, and listened. I heard the sounds of a variety of bird calls: the caw of a crow, the squawk of a seagull, and the chirps and tweets of a variety of other birds. I also heard the flapping of their wings as they flew by. Some flapping was urgent and loud (This sound startled me, and so I peeked for a second and saw that the urgent flapping was that of a pigeon). Other birds flew somewhat soundlessly through the air. I also heard the sound of people walking by---I wonder what they were thinking, walking by this girl sitting on the rocks with her eyes closed grinning. I actually don't think it is all that rare for people to sit with their eyes closed (when they're alone), but in social situations, our self-conscious selves take over and make us act more "normal." This is known as the spotlight effect, which is the tendency to believe that one's features and behaviors are more salient to others than they actually are, when in fact, people aren't actually passing judgment as much as we think they are (But this, I realize, is somewhat irrelevant...Just my Psychology interests coming into play!) So instead of giving in to the social instincts that told me to open my eyes and act "normal," I continued to keep them shut and devoted my attention to my other senses.
The next sense that I directed my focus towards was my sense of smell. As I breathed deeply, I could smell the scent of coming Spring. Okay, this isn't very descriptive, but how does one describe this utterly unique smell, which can only be described in terms of itself? I'll try my hand at describing it anyway. What makes it so wonderful is that it is a combination of opposites: it is dampness mixed with sunshine, it smells cool while at the same time warm, it is winter mixed with summer, and wetness with dryness. It is a crisp smell (but not the same as Fall crispness, which is chillier and gives the sense of impending cold), but the crisp smell of flowers blooming and animals coming to life as the sun announces itself, as if saying, "look at me! I'm on my way and I'm here to stay!" In short, I smelled SPRING!
The next sense was quite tricky: Taste. I opened my mouth a little, stuck out my tongue, and focused on what I was tasting. To be honest, it wasn't much. Taste, I feel, is one of our weakest senses because we only use it when we are eating. Rarely does one describe a regular, every-day object by how it tastes. One's sense of taste is something that requires training...we are set to taste only those items (mainly food items) that were artificially flavored. We use spices and sauces to give things a stronger taste because the taste of nature is too subtle for our senses, which, because of this priming, seek out more "pazam," if you will. This is why when we went Maple Sugaring and we had the opportunity to taste the pre-boiled maple sap, I could barely taste the sweetness. My taste buds were trained to want more flavor rather than to appreciate the natural flavor that already existed in the sap. My tongue is simply not yet trained for such natural tastes, but I certainly hope to try and taste nature more and more as Spring continues to reveal herself. So back in my spot, tongue hung out like a dog, I had to focus real hard in order to taste the cool breeze coming off the water. Because my taste buds are not trained to pick up on subtle natural differences in taste, I bent down and licked the rock I was sitting on (juuuust a little)....and for THIS I made sure no one was around, for as much as I was okay with having people walk by and see me sitting with my eyes closed and a silly grin on my face, I was not okay with having people see me licking a rock. See, people have this innate desire to be accepted, and licking rocks is not one of the most socially acceptable behaviors. I wasn't ready to be socially rejected quite yet, even by strangers who I will probably never see again. Maybe next time I will focus more on the fact that these people probably don't care as much as I think they do, and do a little jig on the rocks, but for the time I was feeling somewhat self-conscious, and so I waited until I was alone on the boardwalk to lick the rock. You're probably confused about the social psychology I am throwing into my blog, seeing it seems somewhat irrelevant. But since I'm learning about this shtuff in my Social Psych class, this is just me making connections and reintegrating the whole! WOW! So anyways, the suspense is building in your minds now about what the danm rock tasted like...and I will tell you now: it tasted like a rock. (well, that was a disappointment, you are now probably thinking...and yes, I was disappointed, too). OKAY I'll try to describe this taste in more detail (wow, this assignment IS hard). For anyone who has ever tasted a rock, you know how difficult this is to describe. How do you describe the taste of a cookie or an apple? sweet, juicy, crisp? These descriptions emphasize the flavoring man has put into the item (as with the cookie) or the texture (juicy, crispy), not the intrinsic TASTE! Well this rock was neither sweet nor juicy nor crisp, as you can imagine. It was hard...but once again, saying that a rock tasted hard is not saying much at all--it is just stating it's texture. So since I am having an utterly difficult time describing the
taste of the rock, I challenge you all as you are visiting my spot to TASTE the rocks, and let me know how YOU would describe their flavor (points for the best description...and I may even slip it into this blog as an extra bonus...giving credit where credit is due of course, with quotation marks and everything!). And if you're feeling extra bold, lick the rock with an audience (just a social psych experiment). Goodness, have I been talking too long? HOKAY, I will conclude by saying this was a super fun assignment, and I encourage you all (and I'm also publicly challenging myself--or IS this blog really public?...REGARDLESS...) to close your eyes and let your senses take over more often. It is quite exhilarating and liberating!
