My Wife Sees Pretty Purple Lights —
In a dark machine zapping her brain tumor
“These purple lights are really bright!” my wife said to the radiologist.
“Purple?” he said. “No one has seen purple before!”
“What color is it, then?”
“Oh, there’s no color; its pitch black in there”
“Well where is the purple light coming from?”
“Must be your brain.
The brain is amazing. It sees with no eyes, smells with no nose, feels with no nerve endings, touches with no fingers, and hears with no ears. So then where is the purple light coming from? Can the brain create colors that aren’t there? Can it smell apple pie no one has cooked? Or kiss lips that aren’t there? Apparently, it can.
The purple my wife so vividly saw in the belly of a black machine, was stored within the deep recesses of her brain. And there too it stores the smells of apple pie, the taste of lips, the agony of unrequited love, the sounds of snow landing on snow, and the fear of dark alleyways. Fingers, lips, and ears are just props. But I’m glad my wife is more than a brain. And better looking.
But it was her brain that showed me that it is the only organ that can really “Seize” the colors and tastes and sounds and feelings and names of things — and flood them with meaning. Carpe Diem!
