I’ve always been jealous of people with hearing aids. I’ve been more deaf in one ear since I was little and I learned to compensate in many ways – to figure out where an ambulance is coming from, or which way does a teacher turn when she makes her most important point, or trying desperately to understand what a new friend is saying in a crowded place. As my ears became Boomer ears, both the good one and the bad one getting worse, the low, long sounds of traffic enraged me. I would, with all confidence, misunderstand what wife and kids said in the din of our hectic home – my brain extrapolating, incorrectly, strings of words – the compliments and reprimands – sometimes the expressions of love or intellectual flirtation. I felt isolated and yet always watchful and waiting – never at ease – moving always to face the person speaking or moving to their right when walking down the street so my good ear could hear them, always dreading driving someone because my deaf left ear would be facing them and I couldn’t concentrate on driving while filling my brain with the deep focus required to understand what they were saying. And yet, these all seem like such small things compared to the full or severe deafness that many have.
But I always envied those who wore hearing aids. I couldn’t have them because what was available couldn’t amplify the asymmetrical ranges of high and low tones that my ears couldn’t hear.
I couldn’t believe it when my audiologist told me about new technology that might work for me. I got my own hearing aids! She warmed me that things will sound loud, that I will get used to it, that I will be asking people why this I or that is loud and they will tell me it’s not because they’re used to it.
I don’t want to be used to it. So many things are loud now. Not loud, but distinct. I’m hearing sound I don’t remember hearing and sounds I never heard before. Each of these now have sharp edges, points, shapes and forms distinct from their backgrounds, focusable. The sound of traffic is not so bad now because I can hear the low and high sounds and they blend with the sound of wind and birds and combines – less saturation and contrast – more directional blur. I could hear the cardinals before – the lower trills of their two part call, but yesterday I hear their whole thing – the beginning high whistles which I couldn’t hear before and now the bird is redder and more beautiful. I could not hear before the snap and crush of paper and the grinding of lead on its surface and now when I draw or write I feel like my thoughts are more crafted and permanent. Plastic used to sound just like paper – now I realize its sound is distinctly more oily and homogeneous and consistent – unlike paper’s crispness that turns to fluid crunch that turns to friable whisper. Do the sounds of these ordinary objects now reflect to me the origin and decay of plastic and paper – where there was none before?
I don’t want to get used to this.
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