Is Altered Reality Still Reality?

Yesterday, with some of my distribution of the team winnings from the Tour of Walla Walla, I treated myself to an almost 2-hour long massage under the magical hands of Angela. She had me start face down, and as we progressed, with my deep breaths in and out through my mouth, my nose became more and more plugged up. Allergies? Perhaps. Turn over, face up. Continue. Breathe. In, out. Through the mouth. Deep sighing breaths. Feeling amazing. Almost falling asleep. So relaxed and rejuvenated.

After we finish, I sit up, stand, reach for my clothes - and realize my ears are plugged. But not really plugged. More...altered. It's not the plugged ears you experience when you're flying or climbing up a mountain, where everything is just muffled until they "pop". This altered my hearing in the strangest way, making it sound like Angela was speaking to me from inside a deep cavern. And I could hear my clothes make sounds against their own wrinkles and against my skin as I put them back on. Sounds I've never heard before - hardly even realized they were there.

After being upright for another few minutes, my hearing returned to normal. But as I drove away in my car, taking big swigs from my water bottle, I pondered what had happened. Because I knew that what I had heard with my altered hearing, I was actually hearing. I wasn't making it up, and it wasn't me going crazy (or at least I'm pretty sure of that). I was actually hearing my clothes. And I was actually hearing Angela's voice echo in my ear canal. And I was actually hearing my own breath from inside my body.

This event makes me question reality even more than I have been lately. Are there really many versions of reality? What I see and hear and smell and touch and taste every day must truly be just one of many possible ways to interpret my experiences.

This afternoon I'm planning on attending an art exhibit of a friend's sister, Margot Quan Knight, at the James Harris Gallery in Seattle. The title of the exhibition is "Mirror, Mirror," and I expect there to be some pondering of reality while I'm there, too.

Enjoy your weekends, everyone - whichever forms of reality they decide to take.

Commute

I recently started biking to work. It's amazing how much more there is to sense when you're on a bicycle. Today I was particularly cognizant of the smells. There was the appropriate smell of freshly brewed coffee emanating from a Starbucks. There were the sharp fumes coming from the transit bus. The two men who got off the bus left a trail of cologne in their wake. Much more pleasant was the woman's perfume as she crossed the street in front of me downtown, while I waited for the light to change. Then the sweet smell of baked bread, and hot cookies. The scent of garbage. And chemicals - paint?

I think about my ability to identify all of these smells, and can't help but feel it is a wonderful brain exercise, just riding my bike to work.