Synesthesia

Zoey's childhood is something oily dripping from between my fingers. Almond oil, perhaps, very slightly sweet and slippery warm. The other day as we played outside in the sun she sang the theme song to Wow Wow Wubbzy softly under her breath. wow wow wubbzy, wubbzy wubbzy wow wow... She has taken to wearing what she calls her clickety clacks as she gardens, pink plastic mules with faux marabou feathers that I have had to tape back onto the tips of each toe. Thanks, Zoey, I said, now you've got that song in my head. And she looked at me, confused. The song is on your head? So I explained to her what that meant, a song in your head, how you can hear it over and over inside your head, doesn't that ever happen to you? She smiled and patted her shovel against the dirt. Five minutes went by until she walked over to me with her plastic clickety clack shoes and pressed her ear against mine, a hard, hot apricot late in the afternoon: but I can't hear it! Sometimes I feel as if I am mother to Amelia Bedelia, drawing the bath on construction paper and making sponge cake out of Scotch-Brite.

And yet there are other times when I feel as if I am mother to genius, her mind complex like sweet and sour borscht, an abundance of senses, synapse and red tongue-like edges. Mama! I have a song in my head! Yesterday she pressed her ear against mine again. Can you hear it? Sticky hot ear against sticky hot ear. What song is it, sweetpea? And this is what she said: It is a yellow song, mama, can you hear the yellow song in my head? So I pressed my ear hard against hers and I heard it, the song of my child who tastes spiney pokes and smells the sharp curve of fuschia. The song of yellow and why not.