Visual Thinking…I love imagery.

Holy Dust Motes

I wrote a poem in 1999 about dust and how it danced in beams of colored light from my church’s stained glass windows. For years I perseverated about anything dust related.

Painting The Chameleon Every Day

What does that phrase even mean? Well, chameleons change to suit their environment. For people who find that  type of chameleon-like behavior difficult, it’s as if they/we have to manually paint ourselves every day to blend in. Tiring process.

Inside The Mime’s Box

This is me, pretending to be inside a mime’s invisible box. Even before I took up miming in 2002, I related to carrying around a lifelong invisible box.

Communication Breakdown

My son designed this image of me doing the ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ bit.

Under The Banana Moon

This is child me.

I made those images for the most part from original photos with my computer art program.  Do you know what all those phrases above- have in common?

Well…Early on in my writing process,  I named my memoir: “Holy Dust Motes,” after the poem I’d written. Here are a few lines from it:

The specks land in the hair of the people seated in

     Front of me; unbeknownst to them.

And I smile as I watch them dancing in the sun’s ray;

     For I have a secret.

I will take these holy dust motes home with me…

     ‘Cause some have chosen to land in my own hair

And in my clothes.

For some reason the phrase “Holy Dust Motes” had a quality to it that evoked exactly the atmosphere my book was about: mystery, intrigue, beauty and interest in what is nearly invisible. Worlds in worlds. Like “Horton Hears a Who?” Dr. Suess masterfully wrote about symbolism. A world in a dust speck. A faraway voice calling “I’m here!”

After a few years the book was taking shape nicely and I decided my book should instead be called: “Painting The Chameleon Every Day.” These lines about the chameleon which summed up my world, made it into the finished book eventually, although it did not use the chameleon in the title:

In many ways this book is a regurgitation; an attempt to paint a

sensitive and bittersweet life onto the quietness of paper. It’s

painting the chameleon by hand every day. It’s just another autiebiography in the big scheme of things. It’s wabi-sabi in the details.

After mulling on that title for a while, I had an epiphany! I would name my book “Inside The Mime’s Box.” I decided against that title but it was in the running a long time. An excerpt that touches on this:

The elusive mime’s box, with its allegories and invisible

symbolism, is ever-present, having sustained me through all my days like Lynda Carter’s invisible car. People were dropping in like parachutes and I faced them from the invisible box. Incoming!

An early version of my book (before I found an agent) was actually called “Communication Breakdown.” Keri Bower (—-Keri Bower, filmmaker, motivational speaker, advocate, author), an early reviewer of my book, had this to say:

 

“More than a beautiful story of love, loss and life, Kimberly’s superbly written memoir is in a sense, a call to action. As it effortlessly weaves words in patterns of deliciously deep inspiration, it also calls upon us to reflect upon our own challenges and breakdowns and to dream big. The reader will undoubtedly relate and fall under the spell of Kimberly’s incredible gift to us – where we can see and feel life beyond the appearances of breakdowns. Communication Breakdown? Communication BreakTHROUGH!

With each page turned, I held my breath and let tears flow. I am blessed and better for the read. Bravo Kimberly and your journey of living, loving, loss, Asperger’s and selective mutism – and now, triumph, indelible forever. Your way with words reminds me of my favorite modern author, Augustine Burroughs “Running with Scissors”.

Keri with love.

You may recognize the phrase “Under The Banana Moon.” It’s the title I finally decided on.  I knew the market was flooded with Aspergers memoirs, but I loved to read about experiences by my peers and comrades and I was compelled to write and make sense of my own. After all, I had over 17 diaries to try to understand. Besides, I never really intended to publish my book. It was originally for myself. The title evokes imagery and wordplay. I like that. My grandson gave me the term. 

I immerse myself in creative pursuits. I am a visual thinker. My memories are stored that way. I am happy when I stumble across crosses that appear naturally; like these…

When I think, I see the words always in a Times New Roman font, developing on the screen in my mind’s eye. Before computer writing programs, I saw spoken words and my thoughts as if typed on a white page. Typewritten sentences have a distinct look. 

If my freezer is too full, I cannot make decisions on what to eat. I have to see exactly what I have on hand. I have to SEE. Quiet people have loud minds (that’s a saying I came across) and in my case a mind full of yesterdays’ images. 

Yesterday I took close up pictures of every one of my towels. (I’ll spare you having to see those!) Well, actually here is one:

Why would I do this?

I mentioned collecting in my last blog. I have always enjoyed things that were alike but somehow different. And so I find the collection of towel pictures alike with each one so different, unique with it’s fadedness, or that one’s bleach spots… And that one, from a friend who stayed awhile and left it behind. Even mundane everyday things, like all persons, have stories. 

Like groups of pens, figurines of one particular subject matter… Dust and all its forms. It is for this reason I like read -ing memoirs. We are all people. We are so alike and so different – each of us. That’s intriguing to me. Take a look at this stuff:

Isn’t this a very cool collection of miscellaneous objects? You may have heard this story. A crow brought each and every one of these things as gifts to a little girl…

visual thinking as defined by wiki in part:

……thinking through visual processing. Visual thinking: seeing words as a series of pictures. It is common in approximately 60%–65% of the general population. 

“Real picture thinkers”, those persons who use visual thinking almost to the exclusion of other kinds of thinking, make up a smaller percentage of the population. Research by Linda Kreger Silverman suggests that less than 30% of the population strongly uses visual/spatial thinking, another 45% uses both visual/spatial thinking and thinking in the form of words, and 25% thinks exclusively in words. 

According to Kreger Silverman, of the 30% of the general population who use visual/spatial thinking, only a small percentage would use this style over and above all other forms of thinking, and can be said to be ‘true’ “picture thinkers”.

End wiki quote —-

I love imagery. I leave you with a few lines from my poem Expectant:

She wanted the crumbs left for the mice who dare run the green and orange kitchen at night while she sits like a sphinx in the dark, her feet up on the chair, smiling, holding the button in the off position until there! eyes adjusted, she sees the skin of an onion examined with tiny elflike hands. Yes, this is high fine entertainment after night school. While they sleep. Before she writes…She clicks !on! the flashlight and then sees the elongated face (of course she’d known they were rats) of the mouse accepting, unstartled, his nocturnal friend. Tonight if the cupboards are bare; she and her mother will gather the staples, shake a little of this and that into their palms, and if it doesn’t crawl away it will go in to the fare fit to pass as edible and she will give thanks.

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That poem spoke of a 16 year old me. Everyday I do give thanks for all things big and seemingly small. I remind myself of worlds within worlds, stories untold, and remind myself never to take anyone or anything for granted. 

LIKE my author FB page? Here: https://www.facebook.com/underthebananamoon?ref=hl

story about crow bringing gifts: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31604026