Everyone thinks I named him Mango because of his orange eyes, but that’s not the case. I named him Mango because the sounds of his purrs and his wheezes and his meows are all various shades of yellow-orange, like a mango in different seasons.

                                      from A Mango Shaped Space
                                                          Wendy Mass
                  Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2008

    For me, and most people, too, a sunset is a beautiful experience of colors brilliantly or gently mixing in swirls, lines, and bottom-lit clouds. Or the surprise of the first daffodil or dandelion or encountering Grant Wood’s “American Gothic.” It’s visual.
    When I hear a symphony, or jazz, or a folksong, the melody could be raucous or harmonic or an interesting or maybe grating combination. Or the delight of a baby’s giggle or the lyrical tune of a birdsong. It’s auditory.
    Even those two descriptions “stay in their own lanes” in my brain’s pathways. A picture forms when I read about the sunset, but sound is evoked by the description of the music.
    Since I watched and read about Pharrell Williams in Piece by Piece, his new biopic, I learned about synesthesia. According to healthline.com, “[s]ynesthesia is a neurological condition in which information meant to stimulate one of your senses stimulates several of your senses. People are usually born with the condition, but some people develop it later.” Research is showing that synesthesia may be genetically inherited.
    The word itself comes from the Greek words synth (together) and esthesia (perception). Like Pharrell and others, sounds, especially music are visual as well as auditory. 
    Each of our five basic senses is processed in a different part of our brain. Synesthetes, though, simultaneously process one stimulus in different parts of their brains. While listening to middle C, for example, the auditory cortex will light up, but so may the visual cortex, showing the listener a color or shape. The parietal lobe, that part of the brain that distinguishes one taste from another, may also activate, associating the sound with a particular taste.
    All this is to say that people with synesthesia have brains that are hyper-interconnected in unusual and unexpected ways. Although synesthesia presents differently in different people, sensory triggers are consistent for each person. The main character in today’s quote tells us that all of her cat's sounds were shades of mango. Each time he purred or wheezed or meowed. it looked the same.
    There is no known treatment for synesthesia, but most synesthetes enjoy experiencing the world in their expanded, if unusual way. 
    Pharrell Williams’s particular form of synesthesia mixes sound and colors. He has been intrigued with LEGOs since he was young and his interest in “the infinity of space” was the catalyst for his collaboration with LEGOs designers to create a new spaceship set. As sometimes happens, one thing led to another and his biopic included not only Pharrell’s synesthesia but also his LEGO creativity.
    How the creators used Pharrell’s story to show the development of LEGO’s new Over the Moon set is its own example of creativity. The whole movie set is made of LEGO bricks, and then animated. The story opens with Pharrell’s discovery of sound images as he sits, fascinated, by the colorful music bursting from his turntable speakers.
    Mixing senses to create surprising and unusual images is often the work of poetry. Unexpected juxtapositions of familiar items help us think in new ways. 
    But it’s not only the job of poetry. Sensory images appear in our common vernacular, too. How about sharp cheddar? We don’t usually describe our food as a shape. Or the sweet sound of success. What does that even mean? And the whole genre of music: the Blues? 
    So could our senses be connected to our emotions? The short answer is yes. According to NeruoLaunch.com, “[o]ur five senses…are like gatekeepers to our emotional realm. Each sense has its own unique way of influencing our mood and triggering emotional responses.”
    When a piece of sensory information enters our brain, it creates its own unique pathway across our vast and complex neurological system. And at the center of it all is a collection of structures, the limbic system, our “emotional brain.” 
    Our limbic system acts as a bridge that uses our memories to connect our senses to our emotions. It taps into our vast mental library and compares the current experience with ones in our past. We feel the emotional response.
    And it’s not all unique to each individual. 
    Exposure to the color red can increase our heart rate and blood pressure. Blue calms us down. Studies have shown that even a brief exposure to nature can reduce stress and improve our mood. Most of us respond favorably to a hug. Music really can soothe our souls. 
    Even though my own experiences do not include mixing actual colors with the emotions evoked by the music, science has shown that    
listening to or singing the Blues helps us process our loneliness, sadness, and grief.
    On this last day of 2024, I’ll turn on the radio and sing along.

I’m reading The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese (Grove Atlantic, 2023). It’s a three-generational saga that’s set in South India. A young girl (12 years old) travels across the water for her wedding, where she will meet her husband, a 40-year-old man, for the first time. According to the publisher, it is a “hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding… one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.  
                   Be curious! (and “Don’t Worry, Be Happy!”)

…I think it’s quite tragic.
Mum’s parts could help others,
And I think that that’s magic!
from Freddie and the Magic Heart
                                            written by Mark James
                                      illustrated by Lulu McWilliams
                           Grosvenor House Publishing Ltd., 2023
  (accessed on Hoopla through my library’s website 12/22/24)

    When I renewed my driver’s license, I also renewed the checkbox for organ donor. If my parts are good enough when my days are done, other lives can be saved. 
    It’s that simple.
    I don’t think of myself as more selfless, more generous, or more altruistic than anyone else, really. I think most of us go around this earth the best way we can and do for others when and how we’re able. 
    But some of us are heroes. Some of us are just better do-ers and better thinkers. They recognize the right choice and just do it.
    A core tenet of Judaism is gemilut hasadim, usually translated as “acts of lovingkindness.” Gemilut are actions done with reciprocity in mind and are valuable to everyone involved. Hesed (pluralized as Hasadim) is usually translated as “human kindness.”
    Rashi, a medieval commentator on Torah (the Five Books of Moses, including writings and commentaries on them) explained it this way in My Jewish Learning. “Hesed is when you give your heart and mind to the well-being of the [other] person…and when the command to ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ is fulfilled.”
    Brain research has recently discovered the science behind why some of us are more prone to extreme kindness than others.
    Abigail March is a neuroscientist and an associate professor in the neuroscience program at Georgetown University. She studies the brains of adults and adolescents to determine the differences that exist between people who have done altruistic acts (donating a kidney to a stranger, for example) and those labeled as having “severe conduct problems and limited empathy.”
    She found, and others have since corroborated, the amygdalas of altruists are larger and more active than those of psychopaths, their sociological opposites. The amygdala is the part of our brain that notices and reacts to emotions, especially fear. If we don’t recognize fear in others, we won’t be moved to help. Dr. Marsh would probably agree that It’s a lack of compassion more than an evil desire to do harm that stops someone from intervening in a dangerous situation.
    The opposite is also true. In her TED talk (September, 2016), Marsh defines altruism as “a voluntary, costly behavior motivated by the desire to help another individual.”
    She also claims that people are fundamentally compassionate. In our society, as we become more financially secure, we are better able to extend ourselves. 
    We also see more suffering. Altruism, like most human qualities, is found on a continuum. One end is anchored in selfishness, the other in altruism. Most of us fall into the vast middle. We donate time in food pantries, animal shelters, hospitals… or donate funds to help alleviate the suffering we see.
    Matthieu Ricard, a happiness researcher and a Buddhist monk, tells us that goodness is banal. It is common, obvious, and boring. We don’t pay attention to goodness, but we all agree with his comment when we notice that murder, theft, and other bad news get the attention of news reporters, whether in print, on air, or online (whether true or not).
    This is the season of gift-giving. While most of us will not give a kidney or lung or run into traffic to save someone’s life, I think most of us are doing the best we can. 
    When I looked up altruist in Thesaurus.com, I found contributor, philanthropist, promotor, humanitarian, and well-wisher among others.
    Selflessness is related to benevolence and kindness.
    And generosity is linked to hospitality, benevolence (again), largesse, high-mindedness, and open-handedness. 
    Do-gooders, all, to be sure, but giving does not have to be materialistic. Many of the most meaningful gifts involve kindness, compassion, and our time.
    According to St. Augustine, altruism (the act of doing for others) is the quality in humans that makes us like angels.

I finished reading Demon Copperhead and agree with everything I said last week. Although I’d love to spend the time to read David Copperfield for comparison, wow, so many books, so little time has become my mantra.
                                         Be curious! (and grateful)

Vocabulary—all the words you know.
After you read this book your vocabulary will be gigantic! (That’s fancy for really big!)
                    from Fancy Nancy’s Favorite Fancy Words
                                          written by Jane O’Connor
                                illustrated by Robin Preiss-Glasser
                                     HarperCollins Publishers, 2008
    
    I learned about tofu presses the same time I realized I needed one. No problem. I made my own. A combination of the A and M volumes of my 1989 World Book Encyclopedia (the heaviest ones), a couple of large cans of diced tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, or tomato sauce (whatever is handy and NOT in glass), and a couple of thick dishtowels folded in half got the job started. I topped it off with my Roget’s Thesaurus and an American Heritage Dictionary. 
    While squeezing out the liquid by sandwiching the tofu between all those words does improve my recipes, it does nothing for my vocabulary. But when I find myself turning to Google and online dictionaries and thesauri, well, I like to think of my books as being useful, too.
    Speaking of words, we’ve come to the time of year when word-conscious organizations announce their “Word of the Year.” The criteria are different for each, and I’ve listed some of the most common ones.  
    dictionary.com analyzes data from headlines, search engines, and trends on social media to “identify words that [impacted] our conversations, online and in the real world.” They came up with demure, noting the American TikToker Jools Lebron’s viral media clip.
    Merriam-Webster bases its choice on results of “tracking a rise in searches and usage” from several sources. Their choice, polarization, describes not just division, but [political] division that is moving us “toward the extremes rather than toward the center.”
    Cambridge Dictionary uses three criteria to determine their word: 
        Which word was looked up most (or spiked)
        Which word captures best what was happening during the year
        What is interesting about the word (from a language point of view)
    The criteria pointed these scholars to the word manifest. Even though the word itself has been used for over 600 years, its common usage has changed from an adjective (to refer to something clear or obvious) or a noun (to refer to a list, say of passengers or cargo) to a verb. It’s scientifically unproven, but “famous performers, star athletes, and influential entrepreneurs claim they have achieved something because they manifested it.” Focus on something you want to do or be, then try and make it happen.
    Oxford University Press uses a combination of public input and their own language analysis to come up with their word. In 2024, the use of the term brain rot skyrocketed 230% from 2023. Brain rot is what happens when we overconsume online content that is particularly “trivial or unchallenging.”
    So four esteemed organizations used a combination of technology and humans to determine, in the words of Wikipedia, “the most important word [or phrase] in the public sphere” and came up with four very different words. 
    If you want to nominate your own word of the year, you can submit your choice to the American Dialect Society using their form. Click on the link to find a little history, some guidelines, and a place for your submission. ADS will announce their WOTY during their annual conference (in conjunction with the Linguistic Society of America) upcoming in Philadelphia from January 9-12, 2025.
    Word of the Year generators are available on the Web. According to Andie Jaye, writing for MaryAnne Kochenderfer’s MamaSmiles, everyone’s Word of the Year will be different. Choosing one helps identify a “point of focus” or an intention for the coming year. It’s broader than a resolution. Your word can inspire, encourage, and motivate you throughout the year to become more self-aware. Here's a word list From MamaSmiles. Activities on the second page will help keep you focused.
     Here's another one from The Goal Chaser that includes lots of motivation to carry you through the year. 
    Nancy Clancy, in Jane O’Connor’s books (see quote at the top of the page) never says anything simply if she can fancify it. The series has been a hit since it first came out in 2005. 
    While journalists, editors, and literary agents of all kinds encourage their readers, writers, and clients to use simple, clear writing to express their ideas, we all know it’s not nearly as much fun as being fancy.

I’m reading Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperCollins, 2022, Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction). It is a modern story inspired by David Copperfield (Charles Dickens, 1849) and addresses our society’s same ills: institutional poverty, dangers of the foster care system, child labor, poorly performing schools, addiction…that can’t be solved with Story. But, fiction takes a tiny step back from our reality to show us how life is for victims of extreme poverty and what it takes to move through it. 
                                     Be curious! (and choose your words wisely)

Trixie’s daddy called the airline
and asked them to look for
Knuffle Bunny on the plane. 
But the plane had left for
China!
                                         from Knuffle Bunny, Free
                              written and illustrated by Mo Willems
                                                 Balzer + Bray, 2010

    It was usually an uneventful walk to my elementary school, a short distance from home. Occasionally, it was scary, like the time I told a stranger-dog to Go Home! and it worked! 
    Or the exciting time I found a nickel.
    A nickel was a lot of money for a six-year-old, especially in those “olden days.” I wasn’t sure what I should do, but I knew I couldn’t keep it. It wasn’t mine, and some unfortunate schoolmate was surely sad and looking for it. 
    I showed the nickel to my teacher, Mrs. Zimmerman, and asked her what I should do. She told me to take it to the Principal. Mrs. Z must have known how intimidated I felt. She walked me to the Principal’s office and even spoke for me. 
    My kind and knowing Principal (I wish I could remember her name) said she would keep the nickel safe for a week. If no one claimed it by then, I could keep it. 
    After a long week, no one claimed the nickel and it became mine! A reward for my honesty, the Principal and Mrs. Z told me.
    Life was pretty grand for me, but I wondered for a while about the kid whose nickel I plinked into my piggy bank that afternoon.
    Then, the other day I saw an article on CNN about the Unclaimed Baggage Store.
    The store opened on a kind of whim in 1970. One day, Doyle Owens’s friend called him from Washington, DC. He had “mountains of unclaimed luggage and didn’t know what to do with it.” The friend worked for Trailways bus service. People forgot their bags, he said, or they were misdirected or otherwise lost. Doyle borrowed $300 and a 1965 Chevy pickup. He drove to DC, collected the suitcases, and when he got home, put ads in the Scottsboro, Alabama newspaper. 
    He set up the items on tables, and people flocked to the store. Doyle sold out, again and again. Now, 52 years later, the store is online and international. With over one million visitors annually, it’s become one of the area’s main tourist destinations.
    No wonder! More than 7,000 new items arrive daily and include everything from athletic shoes to zippered handbags. Designer jewelry and clothing, electronics, musical instruments, wigs, and books are just some of the types of articles you’ll find.
    The stuff are not those things people don’t want anymore. They are not useless birthday presents or the wrong brand of perfume. The merch that ends up in Scottsboro, Alabama, are precious. They’re sentimental. They’re those things travelers don’t want to leave at home when they visit their grands or embark on the trip of a lifetime or travel for business.
    If an airline has never lost your luggage, you are in the huge, vast majority of travelers. Over four billion bags are checked each year. According to Unclaimed Baggage’s website, 99.5% of suitcases do not get lost. But, if the math is correct or even close, about two million suitcases do go missing every year. 
    Most airlines are diligent. To protect customer loyalty and present a caring, concerned, and helpful face to the public, carriers invest “significant manpower and tracking technology” in making sure passengers are reunited with their stuff. 
    So where do they end up?    
    If, after an extensive three-month search, the owners are not found, airlines sell the lost luggage to the Unclaimed Baggage Store. They don’t profit from selling the lost bags. At best, they reduce their own monetary loss incurred by the search for owners and payouts to them.
    With the huge amount of new stock arriving each day, the Store has streamlined its procedures for handling it all. After it arrives, bags are unloaded without opening them or taking inventory. Then the merch is sorted. About 1/3 of lost items are “treasured finds,” looking for another go around with a new owner. Other items are donated to local, national, and global charities.” Unusable items are disposed of in the most environmentally responsible way possible.
    Electronics are tested and wiped clean of personal data.
    Clothing is washed or drycleaned as needed.
    Then, experienced retailers value items for sale at up to 80% of their value.
    Some of the most unusual items from the past 50 years are on their website. Click for a peek!
    Here’s a short list of some of the best ways to make sure your bags end up where you are when you arrive at your destination.

• Securely attach a luggage tag with your contact info on each bag (but not your address. That can alert a potential thief that you are not at home!). Put one inside, too.
• Remove old stickers, especially those with barcodes on them.
• Be ready to describe your lost bag. “Big and black” won’t get the job done.
• Check your bag(s) as soon as you arrive to give staff plenty of time to tag and load your bag(s) correctly.
• Tie a bright color to the handle or use a funky-colored bag. Other passengers will be less likely to mistake your bag for theirs.
• When you check in, match up your baggage receipt details with the tags your agent attaches to your bags.  
• Remember, most bags and people (and pets) arrive safely! 

I just finished reading True Grit by Charles Portis (first published in 1968 as a serial in The Saturday Evening Post). The story is the flashback of a colorful spinster narrator who tells how she searched for and found her father’s killer with the help of a US Marshall who had plenty of “grit.” By the end, readers will know that Mattie sustains herself with her own “true grit.”
                        Be curious! (and treasure what you love)​

For the first time ever,
they didn’t feel bad
about feeling bad,
or sad,
or mad
or happy.
They were free to feel
all their own feelings in their own way.
                                                      from Moo Hoo
                                        written by Audrey Perrott
                                         illustrated by Ross Burach
                                             Scholastic Press, 2024

    I was not that young, maybe nine or ten, when I caught my mom crying. She was cross-wise on her neatly made-up bed, sobbing. 
    I had never heard Mom cry before. Surely something terrible was going on. 
    “Sometimes even moms get sad,” she admitted when she noticed me. She assured me that all was well. I think I believed her. Neither of us mentioned it, ever, until now. And that’s all I know. We never mentioned it again.
    I never saw (or heard) her cry again, either. 
    According to the New York Times (11/14/24) though, “[c]rying is a quintessential human experience.” Crying is found on multiple continuums. Some of us cry a lot, some not so much. Some people cry easily, some only when profoundly moved. Some cry in sympathy with others, and some of us only cry when we’re alone. If you’re human, you cry.
    We cry to express emotion, and scientists have verified what most of us know. Our emotions are complicated. No single area of our brain has been identified with a particular emotion, say sadness or anger or joy. And, as yet, scans have not verified what actually happens in our brains when we cry.
    While crying is most often associated with sadness, Dr. Ad Vingerhoets, an emeritus professor of clinical psychology at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and one of the foremost experts in human crying, named helplessness “the core element of crying.” Adult crying, for any reason, probably points us back to our babyhood reason for tears, a call for help or support. 
    Reflexive tears protect our eyes from irritants like dust, strong odors like the gas released by a cut onion, and even bright sunshine. Basal tears keep our eyes lubricated. But emotional tears are physically different from the other types. 
    According to NeuroLaunch, founded in 2022 by a team of experts in neuroscience and psychology and "committed to accuracy, accessibility, inclusivity, curiosity, and integrity," it is our lacrimal glands, tucked in above each eye, that produce our emotional tears. Strong emotions trigger the gland to produce tears rich in proteins and hormones. They contain higher levels of stress hormones like cortisol and a natural painkiller, leucine enkephalin. Oxytocin is released during emotional crying. So are endorphins. These chemicals contribute to the cathartic feeling many of us experience after a good cry. It is our body’s way of naturally self-medicating.
    All strong emotions are tear-triggers. The crying continuum that kicks in can be attributed to a complex interplay of individual personality traits, past experiences, and possibly a biological predisposition. 
    People who are more empathetic tend to cry more easily.
    Cultural and societal differences also matter. In societies that place a high value on bravery, strength, and masculinity, like ours, crying is viewed negatively. It is seen as cowardice or weakness. Other cultures value open emotional displays as a sign of sincerity and trustworthiness. Crying shows a direct expression of the crier’s true feelings. 
    The researchers at NeuroLaunch tell us that when we see someone cry it often triggers compassion in us. These connections can help encourage community-building. Tears signal that all is not well with us. They help us bridge the gap between our feelings and our difficulty in expressing them. Tears are a form of nonverbal communication. 
    Even though crying is beneficial and everyone does it, in our culture it’s not always appropriate. Suppressing our tears while giving a speech, teaching a lesson, or meeting someone for the first time, for example, is usually desirable. Sometimes a deep breath or two can help. 
    If you seem to cry all the time or even most or a lot of the time, you can try journalling or meditation. Or, it may be time to seek professional guidance. 
    Crying is the result of strong emotion and it is not all negative.
    Tears of joy are real, too. They help the crier deal with their feelings and they may encourage the witnesses to shed a few of their own, building a connection. 
    While research is still scant in the field of emotional crying, social and clinical psychologists are working with others in their fields of human behavior to discover whether crying helps children and adults develop a sense of morality, empathy, and ethics. Studies of depressive disorders, psychological trauma, and pathological grief are other areas they consider.  
    Science has come a long way since Charles Darwin deemed emotional tears a “purposeless phenomenon.”
    Mom may not have cried again, but I suspect she did. I hope she felt better for it. 

I’m reading A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy by Tia Levings (St. Martin’s Press, 2024). Although I’m only a little way in, I am beginning to understand how tightly the grip of Ms. Levings's religious teachings bound her. The enormous conflict within herself spurred her escape from her husband’s extremism. She needed to save her own life and her children’s, too.  
    Be curious! (and don’t deny yourself a good cry now and then)