Science has long expostulated that the human brain is a complex and wonderful machine, and I agree, though probably not for the same reasons science has put forth. I think the way the brain reacts to the five senses....now that's what is wonderful.

I find it fascinating the way a particular melody can play around in your head for days and days, making a smile spread across your face when that song comes on the radio. And how your mind can create a special significance for that song....linking it to a time, a place, a person, a gesture, a thought. A song, five minutes at the most, so tiny and inane and ordinary, that can still make you laugh and leap out of your chair and twirl like a maniac when it starts playing.

I think it's thrilling the way your eyes will watch people as you sit in the dark corner of the cafe (or bar, or restaurant, or club, or salon, or even the train).... the young mother with the gurgling child, the old woman looking at pictures of her grandchildren, the slimy man SO obviously having an affair with his secretary (hmm,yes, it's that shifty look),the world-weary teenagers three feet away who think the problems of the universe weigh down their shoulders. It's so enthralling to watch them all come and go, see their stories and their lives...and, when you can't hear what they're saying, imagine their stories - that lovely old woman in the corner may have been a cabaret dancer in her youth....and that little boy may grow up to be the president.....Your eyes will pick up on clothes and hairstyles and smiles and heartaches till the world around you becomes smaller, cozier, because everyone is your own.

Mmm, and taste....remembering the rich melting sensation of chocolate on your tongue, even when you haven't touched any in weeks.....anticipating the first bite of your favourite meal at your favourite restaurant...the first sip of cool tart lemonade when you come in from the sun... the icy trail that mint leaves down your throat ....savouring every new flavour and holding it in your mouth and your mind till you can sample it again. And old tastes dredging up equally old memories... pasta reminding you of the first ever meal someone special cooked for you. Vodka making you think back to the first time you got sloshed (and made a huuuuge fool of yourself). Lemon cheesecake making you think back to girls'-nights-out, pigging out on everything sinful and forgetting all about men (except to bitch about them, of course). Chocolate sauce taking you back to... um, nevermind.

Now, touch....that brings to mind a wealth of images. Sensations of soft silk against your skin, the scratch of wool, the pleasant (slightly sweaty from nervousness) warmth the first time you held hands with a person of the opposite sex, the encompassing feeling of a bear hug, your best friend's arm slung across your shoulder, the days when your mom would make it a point to kiss every scrape and bruise to make it better. There's magic in touch, like holding a baby and feeling a tiny, precious life in your hands. Tracing the velvet-softness of the first lily you were ever given (because your secret admirer knew you hated roses). Guiding your little brother when he first learned to walk. Grabbing your oldest friend in a tight hug before you sent him off to get married. It's said that blind people see with their hands. Maybe the rest of us could stand to learn a thing or two from them.

What's most amazing to me is how evocative smells are....a whiff of cologne can take you back to your first kiss, your favourite perfume can bring you out of a sullen mood, a dab of an exotic scent can make you feel mysterious and alluring. The smell of the sea can make you close your eyes and think of days spent with friends sitting on the promenade and watching tiny crabs scuttle on the rocks below. The rich,loamy scent of the ground after it rains can take you to another time when you and your cousins would dart in and out of the sheltering porch in your ancestral home, trying to catch the first raindrop on your tongue. And the peachy-new smell that babies always seem to carry when you smell their hair....it makes you think of every tired, over-used happy cliche in the world, like sunshine and rainbows and puppies. Favourite smells are stored away in this one tiny corner of the brain, and you're hardly aware of them until you're walking down the street and you pass the bakery. That's when you close your eyes and blissfully inhale the scent of fresh-baked bread and apple pie with cinnamon. And then, instantly, your day is perfect.

Each sense is like an intangible journal...sending sights and sounds and smells and sensations to your brain, storing a memory to correspond with each one. And, in the end, what you have is your life, neatly bound into exquisite memories that you can clearly define, and which clearly define you.