More Than a Feeling

Editing the blurb I babbled about my keepsake color reminded me of the time I took the writing prompt about describing something while specifically focusing on just two of the five senses and ran straight to my beloved heavy, heavy metal. But it occurred to me this morning while running—like I need more time to be alone with my impending doom of a thought-storm, d'oh!—that while I've certainly written bunches of stuff about how death metal affects me, it's most often about how it makes me feel and not about how it my senses are fully involved in the process of converting music to emotion.

Hell, I'm not entirely certain that I've ever composed a proper metal tribute "hearing" at all, and I've probably only skimmed the surface of "touch," too. And while I'm certainly not one of those rare people who can physically SEE music—I get a harsh red flaming flush of envy just thinking about how incredible that must be—I do have moments where I can almost see a song materialize visually out of the invisible auditory realm. And I can inhale the barest whispers of the scent, and I can feel my mouth watering for the taste of it.

Of course, it's hard to type with all that going on, but what the hell—I'll give it a shot. I'll be using "Day of Your Beliefs" by Amorphis for my inspiration this morning:

The soft, melodic introduction appears as a gentle mist that rises after a spring rain. It's rich and filling, like cheesecake, but unlike cheesecake—so often served at the end of a fabulous meal—I know that there's something more and better yet to come. It smells like rain, too, but rather than a post-rain scent, it's the somewhat subtle, lightly electric odor that precedes an unexpected storm, building gradually but quickly, and heralding the end of a long drought.

Just before you expect it to, it strikes. The wind-like touch of the song on my skin is deeper than the caress of a breeze, but falls short of the slap of a dangerous maelstrom—it's the perfect thrill of the perfect storm, washing the sweat-stench out of the air and replacing it with crisp lightness.

And it's bright! It's bright like a fresh-struck match, stunning and unexpected, and flaring for too brief of a time. The smell is that of a match, too. There's a hint of sulfur—unpleasant to be sure—but I am reminded by that smell that without that combustible chemical, the light and warmth of the match is not possible. The clean burn of the wood beyond the match is a soothing smell, like a summer campfire surrounded by friends, and it blends with the initial sting of the scent, filling, too, in its own way.

The flavor is unbearably sweet to me, with tartness carried over the layers of melodious and proudly declarative guitar right onto the tangy topping of the lyrics, blending in harmony that even a musical illiterate like myself can read. I long so strongly to be a part of the song that I join in despite the fact that my voice is better suited to silence than singing.

And I feel like I am, for the alarming, unfair brevity of the lightning flash and the scent of sulfur and the sound of the transitional burst of power, incorporated into music, transported beyond my body and my very being, and inexplicably elevated beyond my feeble senses ... all by the very sounds that I know are struggling to break free of their single sense into the realm of the other four, or even more.

I sometimes cry when it's over, and the lingering warmth and salty taste and foundation-streaking, brazen emptiness of the void that the music filled is the last thing I hear before the painful silence of the ordinary world pulls me back into it.