Smells and Bells

     I am colorblind. I cannot see colors at all. Life is a guessing game for me, trying to  guess what colors things are. I go to the store to buy apples and I don't know if they are red or green except for the fact I know the type of apples I like. I go to the clothing store and I have to guess what colors the shirts are, what color the pants are. Don't get me started on makeup names. What is "Up Up and Away Message"? Yes, that is an actual nail polish color from Essie. I use my intuition to guess what color things are. This is very much a spiritual experience for me because there is no other connection that could possibly tell me what colors things are. It's like there is someone somewhere that is my guiding hands to help me determine colors. It's almost like a gut feeling mixed with being pulled by a rope to the item that is the most appropriate for what I had in mind. It sometimes feels like I don't have a choice what I choose because I have to go wit...

      Skin touches Skin. Fingers wrap around other fingers. The sense of touch evident in the spiritual experience of sex. The body is an altar, touched and loved and cherished. Even modified as desired by the soul. Tattoos, piercings, hair color are all modifications of how one's body altar wants to look. Just as churches have paintings, us as humans can grant our bodies the same beautiful art. The way our bodies interact with others, even from the mundane of bumping into another to the intimate sensual sexual desires are all components of cherishing the body. Feeling all the different textures on the skin throughout the day is almost an obscure form of prayer, making the body some form of useful. Needles poking into the skin when getting a tattoo, the warm water of an evening shower, and all of the  other things that may happen to the body allow for us to feel, not just physically, but it touches our souls and makes us feel different things. It allows us to feel pa...

      It has always bugged me how churches and synagogues and other religious places say to donate to .charities and give to those who are less fortunate, yet all I see when I walk into those spaces is gold. Gold wall ornaments, gold candle holders. It's all just gold. I try to understand that gold is a sign of divinity and godliness, but in my not-so-humble opinion, I think that more money should go to different charities. All sorts of places donate to churches, such as Chick-Fil-A or Amazon, donate to churches to promote their services, but the churches should in turn donate to other local nonprofits that benefit the community they're in. If God is represented in gold, and everything in a church has to be gold, that feels like an unfair monetary balance. If God is supposed to treat all his children equally and love all equally, why would he allow churches to  spend so much on furnishings yet so little on helping combat homelessness. I've been in many churches,...

      I love to cook. I sit down, looking through all of the 48 cookbooks in my house. Not just to look for something to make for dinner, but to get inspired. I get inspired by the flavors and colors of the food to create new art pieces, to relax. Cooking is somehow both so exciting and so stressful. It's exciting because I can create something that I can enjoy making, seeing the foods transform and evolve using spices, heat, cold, and they become this symphony of flavors and textures, almost like a gorgeous design in a fabric. Regardless of if I'm cooking for one person or for my family or friends, cooking is so vibrant. I dance across the kitchen looking for spices or flavors that you have to bring out by tending to the food like a small child. I often cook for my family, such as eggs benedict, crab stuffed salmon, and more. As a person who is Deaf and colorblind, cooking is a creative way for me to create something without needing some sort of accommodation, such as he...