Preparing for Changes; My Inner Voice
It appears that I might finally have a date for one of the most significant moments of my life thus far. Two months from now, on May 7th, if all goes, well, I will be having cochlear implant surgery. This is something I've been wrestling over for the last six months, ever since the hearing in my left ear began to get progressively worse. I've wrestled whatever demons and angels have lived with me all this time, those little stick figures that take on added dimensions in moments of great clarity or sadness. And I've realized it's time. It's time to shift my frame of thoughts from the possible or probable to the inevitable.
In a way, I control my destiny. I've always lived in fear of an unknown date, the day on which I would completely and permanently lose the rest of my hearing. Even as I remained in denial about it, somewhere in the back of my mind it was only a matter of time. And if I have surgery on May 7th, I have taken upon myself the exact date on which I will become completely deaf. The surgery will destroy any remaining residual hearing I have.
I will be trading one illusion for another, a hearing aid for a cochlear implant. And yet there is something beyond that illusion which I will also lose, and I am both mourning and accepting that. In a quite literal sense, I will be losing my inner voice.
Without my hearing aid, you could shout in my ear and I wouldn't hear what you're saying. An ambulance could pass by and I wouldn't know it. There is only one thing I still hear with some clarity, and that is my own voice.
It is snowing today, a lovely surprise for early March in Baltimore. I walk the short distance from my rowhome in Hampden to the Hopkins campus, my breath misting in the cold, the world bouncing ever so subtly up and down. (A result of my vestibular system, which is still in the process of recalibrating itself-- when I move, the world moves with me.) I cross over a bridge on Remington Street. Below me lies a park with bare, snow-covered trees and a brown stream. For the duration of my time here, this is my wilderness. I am humming to myself. I am singing in my own tuneless voice. I am in the process of saying good-bye.
The metaphorical implications are not lost on me. I am trading in my inner voice for an outer voice which should be louder, clearer, and stronger. I hope this can also be a metaphor for my work, which for now is contained in my own mind and a small circle of friends, family and classmates. Getting an MFA is, ideally, the time when a writer hopes to trade the inner voice for the outer, when his or her work is moving towards being published and more widely disseminated. But those are wilder dreams for now. As I walk through the snow to my office and Gilman Hall (and later, Alice McDermott's short novel workshop), I am struggling with metaphors that will help me cope with losing a visceral and deeply-engrained part of myself.
I decide on the metaphor of relationships. My ears in their natural state have served me well enough for 27 years, but now it's time to move on. Much as I love them and the relationship I've formed with them, there's a new and shiny ear out there waiting to be romanced. These old ears are tired of dancing; like in a relationship that just isn't working out, they cease to listen. What is worn and familiar and comforting has become limiting and static. There's a shiny ear out there that wants to go to India and hear songs in a fresh way, and have a new dialogue with the world. There's a shiny ear out there that likes to dress up and even looks kind of sexy in that futuristic bondage kind of way. I can put clip-on accents on her so that the headpiece and hearing aid that make up the external part of the implant are downright colorful. This shiny ear is not afraid of being seen, not afraid to admit deafness, and yet she also refuses to accept the limitations and loneliness that being deaf inevitably impose. Break-ups are always hard, but this shiny new ear promises a future that is both exciting and terrifying. I've always liked change and adventure, and my task right now is to accept and look forward to the great unknown that will last from May 7th until quite likely my dying day.
In a way, I control my destiny. I've always lived in fear of an unknown date, the day on which I would completely and permanently lose the rest of my hearing. Even as I remained in denial about it, somewhere in the back of my mind it was only a matter of time. And if I have surgery on May 7th, I have taken upon myself the exact date on which I will become completely deaf. The surgery will destroy any remaining residual hearing I have.
I will be trading one illusion for another, a hearing aid for a cochlear implant. And yet there is something beyond that illusion which I will also lose, and I am both mourning and accepting that. In a quite literal sense, I will be losing my inner voice.
Without my hearing aid, you could shout in my ear and I wouldn't hear what you're saying. An ambulance could pass by and I wouldn't know it. There is only one thing I still hear with some clarity, and that is my own voice.
It is snowing today, a lovely surprise for early March in Baltimore. I walk the short distance from my rowhome in Hampden to the Hopkins campus, my breath misting in the cold, the world bouncing ever so subtly up and down. (A result of my vestibular system, which is still in the process of recalibrating itself-- when I move, the world moves with me.) I cross over a bridge on Remington Street. Below me lies a park with bare, snow-covered trees and a brown stream. For the duration of my time here, this is my wilderness. I am humming to myself. I am singing in my own tuneless voice. I am in the process of saying good-bye.
The metaphorical implications are not lost on me. I am trading in my inner voice for an outer voice which should be louder, clearer, and stronger. I hope this can also be a metaphor for my work, which for now is contained in my own mind and a small circle of friends, family and classmates. Getting an MFA is, ideally, the time when a writer hopes to trade the inner voice for the outer, when his or her work is moving towards being published and more widely disseminated. But those are wilder dreams for now. As I walk through the snow to my office and Gilman Hall (and later, Alice McDermott's short novel workshop), I am struggling with metaphors that will help me cope with losing a visceral and deeply-engrained part of myself.
I decide on the metaphor of relationships. My ears in their natural state have served me well enough for 27 years, but now it's time to move on. Much as I love them and the relationship I've formed with them, there's a new and shiny ear out there waiting to be romanced. These old ears are tired of dancing; like in a relationship that just isn't working out, they cease to listen. What is worn and familiar and comforting has become limiting and static. There's a shiny ear out there that wants to go to India and hear songs in a fresh way, and have a new dialogue with the world. There's a shiny ear out there that likes to dress up and even looks kind of sexy in that futuristic bondage kind of way. I can put clip-on accents on her so that the headpiece and hearing aid that make up the external part of the implant are downright colorful. This shiny ear is not afraid of being seen, not afraid to admit deafness, and yet she also refuses to accept the limitations and loneliness that being deaf inevitably impose. Break-ups are always hard, but this shiny new ear promises a future that is both exciting and terrifying. I've always liked change and adventure, and my task right now is to accept and look forward to the great unknown that will last from May 7th until quite likely my dying day.
posted by Franz K at 1:41 PM
5 Comments:
whatever voice you choose your light still shines brightly.
Miss you.
Sarah
Franz,
It's really beautiful what you're saying. I've been trying to reach you to let you know how all went with our Vietnamese company of deaf dancers.
We miss you in Portland.
Love, from Wally, Paul and Barney and the White Bird flock
you're in my thoughts franz.
erich.
Zurasu:
HU.DAI! Good news from Laos--Tuck- tuck has recovered and the termites have rececded; however the monsoons have been terrible on the knutdaret tree and our harvest may be sub-standard. Great fruits the size of breasts have fallen on our heads daily. We drink the milk, it is delicious and very. VERY. But, men with machetes from the plains have taken our women and also one chicken. CHICKEN. We enjoyed it once, but now no. Although monsoon produced a river of blood and knutduhtbreastofjuice,
the bloated bodies float down the river, also the rest of our chickens, and we lost our town machete. We sent the women to swim after the machete in human buttock floating!!!!!
Nhoj, for Ailuj
Sea Bass, unsalted, with salt on plate
without a plate.
mustache,
it
doesn't
matter.
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