Only the Beautiful

“I don’t want to explain why I have it. And I don’t feel like telling her the dirty little turnip is not what it looks like. It is more. It is something beautiful, hidden but there.”

Rosie’s most prized possession is the amaryllis bulb that Helen had sent her for Christmas. It is the only thing that has made her happy in the recent months, and she wants to keep its significance private. As a symbol of hope, the bulb represents the expectation for happiness that might come in the future, even when all other signs of life and joy seem to have faded away.

“Somehow I must find a way out of this place. But until then I will have to pretend, and lucky for me, I already know how to do that. I pretend every day that I don’t see the colors.”

Rosie’s synesthesia is not and never has been a problem in and of itself. The primary obstacle to Rosie’s life is the fact that nobody else can empathize with her perspective. Perceiving colors upon hearing sounds causes Rosie to remain isolated from the experiences of others, and as a result, she is enveloped in a mantle of loneliness. She has been ridiculed and made to feel rejected in the past for revealing this secret about herself, and so she has become quite capable of pretending that the colors don’t exist for the sake of fitting in.