COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho (AP)—"This may sound strange to you, because I know it does to me, but everything I say or do, there is color in what I see"—Shirley Schmidt.
Shirley was drug-free when she wrote those words, the first stanza of a poem about how she sees the world. At the time, she saw a bright splatter of red, green, yellow, and black when she signed her name at the end. She always sees her name that way.
"My name’s bright and doesn’t match myself," she said. "But I like my age. Thirty-eight is red and blue."
Shirley, a Timberlake High custodian, is a synestheste, a person whose senses consistently jumble. Smells accompany some of the letters she sees. Her numbers and most letters come in colors.
She knew she saw life differently from most people the first time she played pool and the balls didn’t match her view of reality.
"The numbers on the balls were all wrong," she said. "Only two were right: six was green and two was blue."
She laughs now, but it startled her to learn she was different. She kept it to herself until 1986 when she met Gail Somers, a Coeur d’Alene tattoo artist.
The two women struck up a conversation and dropped in subtle hints of the colors they see with certain numbers, as they often did, hoping someone would understand.
Gail understood Shirley and Shirley understood Gail as no one ever had.
"It was like a great big wall came tumbling down," Gail said, still excited about finding a kindred spirit. "Except I thought whatever color I saw, she saw."
Each synestheste’s senses react the same throughout life. But one synestheste rarely senses the same as another.
Shirley’s five is always blue and she always smells cooked cabbage with the letter Q. But Gail’s five is always red and her Q has no scent.
Neurologists say the jumble happens before the senses naturally separate themselves. So combined senses, such as colored hearing, are as real to a synestheste as any single sense is to everyone else.
Gail has asked for No. 7 nail polish when she wants green because her brain unites seven and green.
Gail and Shirley share a few colors and numbers. Mostly, they share a phenomenon that happens to about 1 out of 25,000 people. And that makes them feel pretty special.
"I won a trophy playing pool, and I think this helped," Shirley said, showing Gail the squirrel tattoo on her ankle.
"I saw the balls as people I associated with that color, and it was easy to knock over people I didn’t like."
