It took me several tries to get this just right. She has to be perfect. She is special, because this is my birth year, ’92.

Expressing my synesthesia to the world is difficult, as I do not have a direct physical reference to help me. What I see in my mind is abstract, but my “inspired number characters” each have distinctive personalities and appearances. They also each have names to go with their number. That way, rather than portraying my characters as being coldly branded with “meaningless” numbers, they are given a human, animal, and fantastical element with the number they represent.

I named Nirvana the Deer after the grunge band popular in the early ’90s. Nirvana is also a name for the state of mind in which a person is truly at peace and happiness, according to the Buddhist philosophy. The number nine is dark purple, and the number 2 is sky blue. Thus, 92 is purple with blue accents (while the inverse 29 would be blue with purple accents). The deer herself has the personality of a strong and gentle female leader. That suits me well, not to mention that 1992 was considered a great year all around. Too bad I was too busy crying and pooping in a diaper to remember its awesomeness. But at least I have a gift that allows me to see something else amazing in that year/number.