I’ve been fighting a massive ear infection (actually two for the price of one, as I’ve got a middle ear and an outer ear infection in the same ear) for the last week, which means that in addition to so much pain that at one point I actually had doctor permission to take 3 Percocet every 4 hours I’ve also been living in a silent world. I can’t hear a thing. First there was too much fluid buildup and my ear canal was so inflamed it was practically swollen shut and now I have a wick in my ear (to help the ear drops get down inside where they need to be), which is – and these are the doctor’s words – kind of like sticking a tampon in your ear. Since I’m nearly deaf in my other ear anyway, this means that I can’t hear my son cry, I can’t hear him giggle, I can’t hear my husband talk to me unless he’s right next to my ear, and I can hear only the loudest of environmental noises. With the exception of some IM chatting I haven’t had a real conversation in a week.
Whenever I take my hearing aid out at the end of the night, the suddenness of the absence of sound is always a little jarring. I call it the Sound of Silence. But I adjust, and I can still hear some things (I made it 21 years without hearing aids, after all). This is more absolute and it’s taking so long to get back to normal. It feels like my ears are being suffocated. Perhaps that image doesn’t scan for you, but I assure you, dear reader, it is the most accurate way of describing the sensation.
And you know something? Silence is loud. Deafening. Numbing. Maddening. It’s like living in a giant wad of cotton, trying to dig my way through to the outside world, which I keep catching glimpses of but can’t quite get to. Silence doesn’t just affect your ears; it closes in on your whole body and if you think about it too much you start to panic with claustrophobia. You can feel the silence wrapping tighter and tighter around your brain like a corset and clamping around your heart like a great metal vice and squeezing against your insides like a cancer encroaching constantly deeper and further. It’s all I can do to stop my hand from flying to my ear and ripping the wick out, shredding the delicate skin with it, just for the possibility of hearing something, anything.
Saying that I’m lonely is an understatement. Lonely really only captures the loss of interaction with people. What I feel is alienation. I miss interaction with the world as I know it with five senses. I don’t hear the familiar creaking of the floor boards as I creep past the baby’s room. I don’t know when someone comes into the room behind me. I can’t hear the cars going by or the birds chirping or my idiot neighbor yelling at her son. Christ, I can’t even hear myself take a piss. Nearly all the sounds we use to put ourselves in context in the world are missing and I’m left floating above the world, looking at it from afar, unsure of where to plant myself, of how to be a part of it all. It’s like going through life in a dream, like the I that has been living my life for the past week isn’t the real I, but just an imposter, an understudy (and a lousy one, at that) while I’m off on vacation or something.
Through all of this there hasn’t been a single moment in the last week that I haven’t had music playing in my head. Not one single moment. I always have a song going in my head. It’s like my brain can’t tolerate the notion of a silent world. And it’s not like when you get a song stuck in your head and you just can’t get it out. I don’t think I’ve heard the same song twice all week. It’s like I’ve found the perfect radio station. No repeats and only music that I love. I have “listened” to music this week that I haven’t heard in years, and it has run the gamut of my musical tastes. Black Sabbath; Heart; The Allman Brothers; Pink Floyd; Johnny Cash; Cannonball Adderley; The Moody Blues; Fleetwood Mac; Chuck Mangione; Poison; B.B. King, the few rap songs I don’t hate and dozens of songs I love but don’t know the artist of.
Even stranger, I have been completely making songs up in my head. And they’re good songs. They’re songs I wish I could hear again. They are bad-ass songs. Seriously amazing guitar riffs. Impressive piano solos. A wicked fiddle. Trombone and trumpet melodies to make the best of the big band boys sigh in appreciation. Oddly, even a lot of experimental stuff, the likes of which I don’t really listen to. Weird electronic synthesizer stuff that I’ve never been all that into, but which sounded “right” (for the most part: even my perhaps drug-induced compositional genius had some off moments). Crazy ass shit that should probably only be listened to by the light of lava lamps after smoking a lot of dope. I think those were the pieces that tended to come out in the height of my Percocet haze along with some pretty crazy half dreams-half hallucinations.
Suddenly, I feel this bizarre connection with Beethoven. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not comparing my internal melodies to Beethoven’s symphonies. But his ability to compose even after losing most of his hearing suddenly doesn’t seem astounding, it seems the natural thing to do. Beethoven’s brain loved music and lacking the resources to hear it, it simply made it up for itself, and listened to it anyway. Obviously, Beethoven was still, well, fuckin’ Beethoven, and his musical genius is indisputable. But the very act of being able to compose after he couldn’t actually hear the music he was composing no longer surprises me. Of course he could hear the music he was composing. His brain needed the music he was composing to break these chains of silence, to bust apart the corset around his brain, and I like to think of Beethoven’s symphonies as a big “Fick dich” to the Sound of Silence.
Perhaps I shouldn’t comment until I’ve given myself time to absorb, re-read and reflect. But I think spur-of-the-moment impressions are sometimes more important than considered, pondered-over reflections. I have felt your pain (metaphorically, obviously) not only through this most recent fight with the demon, but for a long time, and wondered at the way you fought it, accepted it, refused to accept it, refused to give in to it, and carried on in spite of it. But now, reading your words, I am moved to more than sorrow and wonder at your strength: I feel, amidst the sadness for what you are compelled to endure, a tiny, micro-thin sliver of happiness buried in the pain. The music that you hear inside you is the (obviously very small, but still not to be ignored) recompense for your disability. In a world filled with noise, you might never have noticed the music your own mind, your soul, your heart, constantly compose for you. It is always there, though usually drowned out in the everyday business of life. Your infection will mend, your pain will go, your (very sadly limited) hearing will return, and mercifully even the memory of the pain and isolation will soon fade. But remember, always, that the music is in you: music YOU create, from within yourself. It is inside you. It always was. It will always be. Hold on to that, and find in it something to rejoice in, despite the unfair limitations you have to live under.
Hi there,
I found your blog through a search on hearing loss. I just recently got a cochlear implant after wearing hearing aids for over 20 years. My experience iving in silence afterwards until the CI was activated (and even now when it is off) was similar to yours. You describe it so well, so vividly. It is the loneliest and loudest experience ever! So, know that you are not alone, and if you ever want to chat, let me know. You can find my blog at http://beckssoundeffects.wordpress.com. Take care, and hang in there.
Rebecca Seamon
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