GriefSPEAK: Loneliness of the senses – Mari Nardolillo Dias
By: Dr. Mari Nardolillo Dias Kuchisabishii: “When you’re not hungry but you eat because your mouth is lonely” Many of us experience mindless eating. Picking at a dish of potato chips on the coffee table without thought. Sometimes we “feel like something” but are unsure of what that “something” is – so we eat a host of different snacks, waiting for the aha! This is it! Or maybe we never find it. The Japanese have one word that expresses another view – perhaps our eating is not mindless, but mindful. Our mouths are lonely. Loneliness often results in sadness and longing. This a provocative thought. Can grief create a “loneliness of the sense s?” Yes. We all have “sensory memory”, where the 5 sense s contain both short and long term memory. Our “lonely mouths” are missing the taste of a lingering kiss or the tingle of comfort food from childhood. Other sense s may be lonely as well. Our olfactory sense s miss the fragrance of p...