Today I was talking with a friend about how the weather this weekend was giving us good parts of two sensory worlds. We got to smell the decaying leaves and stomp them with that satisfying crackle, while wearing sandals and for once, not bitterly cursing the November breeze that lifted our hair from our shoulders.
Though I was reminded of the strange sensory experience of expecting one thing and getting another. On friday, when I left my building wearing a pea coat, I tightened my stomach muscles and held my breath, braced for cold. Five seconds without shock left me in a kind of daze. It didn't seem right, and for a moment it was as though I had been violently awakened from a realistic dream. I thought of the time I reached into the fridge and drank from what I thought was a carton of milk, but turned out to be orange juice. I spat it all over my kitchen, for no other reason than surprise.
Certain sensations always seem to belong to certain landscapes. When they switch themselves around, an experience that is ordinarily pleasant turns alien and maybe even unwelcome. Like when you work so hard on your snow fort that you have to take off your coat because you're overheating inside it. Patches of ice are totally unwelcome when unexpected, as are breezes, sunshine, and animals. They hypnotize us momentarily.
It's human to crave predictability in our surroundings.
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