muted

yesterday while on the phone with nathan i had a flash of insight. it was after dinner, during which dan and i watched this amazing new thing they can do for deaf children who are missing the fine hairs inside their cochlea--the ones that allow you to hear nuances like a bird singing, a drum beating, you mom's voice yelling about leaving the toothpaste out. anyway, they can do this thing now where they insert a wire into your cochlea that stimulates it in close to the same manner as the hairs. it's not perfect, but amazing for someone who has never heard anything. of course i cried a little during that. how could you not? this child was just given the opportunity to explore her world in a new way.

i wished, for a few minutes, while watching that girl on television, that i could hear out of both ears. that's not the insight. i'll let you know when it hits. (note: the damage i have is at nerve level, and there's not much they can do about that quite yet.) i wished that i could belong to that set of people. why? who the hell knows. there's beauty in every aspect of every illness or disorder or handicap--it's just a matter of seeing it. the beauty of being deaf is that sound is a gift, and that the way you perceive the world is so different from the person sitting next to you.

i talked about this with kari, one of my now former coworkers, and karen, another coworker, who are both in different stages of being deaf. karen's got one good ear, like me, and kari's got two bad ones, which can be enhanced with the use of a hearing aid. however, since her daughter is also deaf and needed two, kari's only got one.

it was so interesting to finally comprehend that i was first of all not alone in hearing "the charlie brown teacher" voice when i wasn't focused on someone. refreshing and for some reason reassuring to hear that after being in a social situation in which there are myriad voices, you're exhausted. you can't keep your eyes open because the whole time you're so focused on the other person. also reassuring to know that for the most part, we all rely on body language a LOT more than our significant others and friends, just because you're so afraid of missing something.

just plug your ears ometime. see what happens.

i thought it was hysterical and confusing, the first time i saw a jackie chan movie, that i had no idea of what was going on. the little faces on screen were moving and talking, but the words were all dubbed. people in the room were laughing at jokes and i didn't know what the joke even was. i had no idea how much i relied on lip reading. (which reminds me of a day at work: our supervisor came down the aisle and said something amusing to a group of us loitering there, half in and half out of our cubes. everyone laughed. so kari and i laughed too. you do these things to fit in. someone who missed the joke asked what was so funny, and neither of us had any idea. we decided it was a deaf chick thing, and THEN we laughed and no one else quite got the joke.)

i've learned to put up with and love subtitles in movies. my friends and family all walk on my right. i drive because then i can hear the passenger over the road noise.

THIS was the insight i had: i think for a long time i wanted to be a part of the deaf community. but i'm not totally deaf. i don't have to wear a hearing aid, i don't have to sign in order to communicate. i'm part of the hearing world. i told dan once that i wanted to learn to sign because it almost seems like it would be a relief to not have to worry about missing a word or two, having to extrapolate constantly during a conversation and then plead inattention because if you reach into your purse for a peice of gum you miss being attentive to what the other person was saying. course you'd do that if you were signing, too, i suppose. the grass is always greener.

for a long time, too, i wanted my deafness to be something that defined me. i mean, for all intensive purposes, it has; nothing shapes you like a deficiency. but the deficiency in the auditory area has opened up room for other things to take shape and grow. i think about dan's cousin, who was born with one lung. he's almost 20 now, and after all these years, his one lung has grown and expanded and taken up the space of his other lung.

i think about the void i have in my life because i miss so much, and i think about how that has opened other doors for me--the doors that are sensitive to others' moods, the lip reading and body reading that is unconciously done. i think about how wanting to avoid situations in which i might be construed as "stupid" because it seems i'm missing screws have levered me into reading more books, writing poetry, taking pictures.

mostly i think about how the world is filtered differently for each of us. some people are able to go through the world tall enough to reach the top cupboard but unable to see the turtles. i think about stephen hawking and how not much has stood in his way, despite what the rest of us see as a handicap. i think about what sark said in whatever book it was: they never say anything about a fat elephant. or a fat tree. if a tree has a bole that malforms it from the norm, it's a thing of beauty.

how come we cannot see that the disorders and deficiencies of the world are things to be cherished and relied upon?

the cat is close enough, right now, that i can hear her purr, if i turn my head one way. if i look back at my monitor her purring is gone. edited for sound. muted.