Vision, the bully of the senses.

A wonderful friend spoke of how he heard about the idea of vision being the bully of the senses.

We put on blindfolds and wondered about, bumbling into things and each other. Disorientated, awkward, heightened. I recalled the kids game of Marco Polo.

That wonderful restaurant in Kings cross London. Most the staff have a visual impairment. Once you enter, you are struck by pitch blackness. A staff member guides you by the elbow, to your seat. I recall trying to open my eyes even wider, as if somehow I could force some kind of light into my vision. It took a while to settle. Feeling around for cutlery, glasses, plates.

It was interesting that we almost immediately started talking to people next to us. as if the visual cues that normally restrain conversation to people in our group had evaporated. Sound, I guess, does not know the same boundaries and so we easily moved from conversations between each other, to conversations with others.

As for the food, it was delicious. And I had no idea what I was eating. I used my fingers as much as cutlery, it became earthy, connected, immediate and little bit sensuous.

With the bully of the senses out of the picture, social rules evaporated, textures, tastes and smells amplified mysteriously (at times unnerving) and an everyday experience became arousing in many unexpected ways.

To dip into such an experience was arousing, with the knowledge that is was finite, I would return to sight.

There was a poem by Breton the surrealist poet that ends with "I have found the secret of loving you, always for the first time". Well I haven't found that secret, but this playing with the senses has allowed me to experience everyday innocuous moments with a newness, that can be unnervingly delicious.

A lovely website called cities and memories invites people to go sound travelling as opposed to sightseeing. Check it out.