A major part of my CI experience right now is keeping it all in perspective. Within the spaces of my own mind, this is easy enough. I still haven't gotten over my sense of wonder at, well, hearing. When I am alone, and when I use myself as my only marker, I never fail to be pleased - and astonished. The CI is rewarding every moment of every day, and even moments of frustration are tinged with a gentle ironic humor. Isn't this all wonderful?
When my gaze wanders outward, however - when I, like all other human beings tend to do sometimes, start comparing my private progress with the abilities of others - then I do start feeling the true sting of disappointment. I start thinking about what hearing people can do, what they've been able to do all their lives, what they take for granted. What other people (not prelingually deaf) have been able to achieve with CIs. What I've striven to accomplish, but what my brain is not yet able to process. I start feeling restless, agitated, even a little bit self-accusatory. Why haven't I grasped all this yet? Why does sound still sometimes feel garbled, overwhelming, or otherwise make no sense? Why am I back here, still taking these baby steps, while my peers still sprint off toward the horizon?
Stop. I have no right to do this. It's my journey, not theirs - and, if I can't take pride in this, knowing full well where I'm starting from, what is there that I can feel accomplished about? Do not compare. In hearing as in life. It can be hard, watching my hearing friends do things so effortlessly, and then feeling like those things should be closer within my grasp. But should be, according to whose standards? Maybe not mine. And so I try to reserve judgment on myself. That won't do anyone any good. I try, instead, to think of things like this.
I discovered the other day the sound that even finely grained salt makes when it rolls out of its bag to refill the shaker. Simply beautiful.
I went to a meeting at work this past week, in which I sat across from someone's desk and was able to understand him despite terrible lighting, and was simultaneously able to catch the "okays" or "that sounds goods" of another person sitting to my left.
I braved a public event last weekend without an interpreter (gulp) and found that, although I was exhausted by the end, I was able to listen to and watch an incredibly fast-talking speaker and walk away having understood 80-85% of what he said. Score.
In calling my parents on the phone, even despite saying "what?" or "say that again" dozens of times, the instances in which a word sequence rolled out and I understood, perfectly, felt like reaching across a thousand miles to hold a familiar hand.
Earlier this week, I rode a horse and was able to catch some coaching from the ground, listening and processing at the same time as I directed a living, breathing thousand-pound animal. Talk about multitasking.
These are the things I try to focus on. The things that give me pure, honest, undivided pleasure. Looking at my life through my eyes, judging it by my standards. It's not any harder than that, is it, really?
Showing posts with label wonder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wonder. Show all posts
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
A Meeting With Mahler
Last night I went on a grant-funded trip to the San Francisco Symphony - something I couldn't have imagined myself doing a year ago, much less enjoying. This was the first time I'd ever been to a symphony or to a large concert hall, although I think I once might have been dragged to a orchestral performance when I was little. (In which I sat, bored and frustrated and fidgety. Nothing about the actual orchestra stands out in my mind, only that sense of interior confinement and angst.)
Needless to say, this time was different. It's now been almost eleven months since I got my cochlear implant (how does the time go so fast?), and the sense of curiosity and bravery that I now have about trying new sound-oriented events is, I think, one of the best outcomes of that journey. Walking into the symphony, I did not worry about what artistic impression I would grasp or how I would sit through it for an hour and a half. I did not worry about being excluded. I just went, feeling eager and admittedly a little bit proud to be able to experience it with everybody else. When the music started, I leaned forward and watched - and, more importantly, listened - for a span of time that seemed to fly by but also hang suspended in the eternal expansion of a moment.
I regret to say that what I heard, I lack the vocabulary to describe. The language of music lies beyond every form of language that I've learned to use. All I can say is that I liked it, was borne aloft by it, even, although I cannot say why. The symphony in San Francisco was playing Mahler's Symphony No. 6, and as the first movement started I felt the usual sensations that I feel when trying to settle into a piece of complex music. I twiddled my CI volume, trying to get it exactly right as the notes settled into a whisper and then swelled, almost knocking me back into my seat with their sudden energy.
Volume set, I listened. Or tried to. My mind, as usual, got fidgety. My gaze roved about. I studied the people sitting in front of me, looked at the architecture and the patterns on the ceiling. I tried to count how many symphony players there were, to see when their instruments were coming in and out. I thought of the most off-topic, improbable things. It wasn't that I was bored, or that the symphony failed to hold my attention. It was that, once again, I'm simply not used to surrendering my thoughts to listening. My mind clings too strongly to the visual and the imaginative. It is too used to amusing itself when the auditory information of the world goes whizzing by. Anything to do with sound still feels foreign.
But, finally, about an hour into the symphony, I felt those old habits starting to loosen their grip. (I shake my head that it took that long.) The mental fidgeting stopped, and I relaxed into the music. It struck me that I was being transported to the fringes of a different state of consciousness, or of thinking, which was the same state of consciousness that the conductor and all the players must have existed in. The symphony seemed to draw collective breaths before my eyes (or ears!), to flow from one section to the next like a giant living thing. It exhausted me to think of playing an instrument for as long as they did; I thought of the physical precision, the mental sharpness of timing each note to merge with the rest. Yet the players kept going, tirelessly, the conductor breathing energy into their efforts like a bellows. I did not want it to end. It seemed that it never would or could.
When I stood up to applaud like the rest, I only wished I'd been able to summarize what I'd heard. But the symphony had taught me more about music than I'd known walking in the door: I now could pick out when various instruments came in, or slightly anticipate the feeling that linked one section to the next. I'd learned to have my interest piqued by auditory surprises (such as when someone rang a drum that looked like a large sledgehammer and made me jump). Most of all, I realized how much I enjoyed the (for lack of a better word) organic feel of this kind of performance. Not only did I enjoy listening - I also enjoyed watching, soaking in the atmosphere, being there. On the way back from San Francisco, when the people I was with turned on rock music in the car, it just wasn't the same.
Needless to say, this time was different. It's now been almost eleven months since I got my cochlear implant (how does the time go so fast?), and the sense of curiosity and bravery that I now have about trying new sound-oriented events is, I think, one of the best outcomes of that journey. Walking into the symphony, I did not worry about what artistic impression I would grasp or how I would sit through it for an hour and a half. I did not worry about being excluded. I just went, feeling eager and admittedly a little bit proud to be able to experience it with everybody else. When the music started, I leaned forward and watched - and, more importantly, listened - for a span of time that seemed to fly by but also hang suspended in the eternal expansion of a moment.
I regret to say that what I heard, I lack the vocabulary to describe. The language of music lies beyond every form of language that I've learned to use. All I can say is that I liked it, was borne aloft by it, even, although I cannot say why. The symphony in San Francisco was playing Mahler's Symphony No. 6, and as the first movement started I felt the usual sensations that I feel when trying to settle into a piece of complex music. I twiddled my CI volume, trying to get it exactly right as the notes settled into a whisper and then swelled, almost knocking me back into my seat with their sudden energy.
Volume set, I listened. Or tried to. My mind, as usual, got fidgety. My gaze roved about. I studied the people sitting in front of me, looked at the architecture and the patterns on the ceiling. I tried to count how many symphony players there were, to see when their instruments were coming in and out. I thought of the most off-topic, improbable things. It wasn't that I was bored, or that the symphony failed to hold my attention. It was that, once again, I'm simply not used to surrendering my thoughts to listening. My mind clings too strongly to the visual and the imaginative. It is too used to amusing itself when the auditory information of the world goes whizzing by. Anything to do with sound still feels foreign.
But, finally, about an hour into the symphony, I felt those old habits starting to loosen their grip. (I shake my head that it took that long.) The mental fidgeting stopped, and I relaxed into the music. It struck me that I was being transported to the fringes of a different state of consciousness, or of thinking, which was the same state of consciousness that the conductor and all the players must have existed in. The symphony seemed to draw collective breaths before my eyes (or ears!), to flow from one section to the next like a giant living thing. It exhausted me to think of playing an instrument for as long as they did; I thought of the physical precision, the mental sharpness of timing each note to merge with the rest. Yet the players kept going, tirelessly, the conductor breathing energy into their efforts like a bellows. I did not want it to end. It seemed that it never would or could.
When I stood up to applaud like the rest, I only wished I'd been able to summarize what I'd heard. But the symphony had taught me more about music than I'd known walking in the door: I now could pick out when various instruments came in, or slightly anticipate the feeling that linked one section to the next. I'd learned to have my interest piqued by auditory surprises (such as when someone rang a drum that looked like a large sledgehammer and made me jump). Most of all, I realized how much I enjoyed the (for lack of a better word) organic feel of this kind of performance. Not only did I enjoy listening - I also enjoyed watching, soaking in the atmosphere, being there. On the way back from San Francisco, when the people I was with turned on rock music in the car, it just wasn't the same.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
The Black Box, Revisited
This brain business is freaking me out. I’m wondering how much more complex my mind is than I consciously realize. Today I had another auditory therapy appointment, my first since last quarter, and while I walked away feeling excited, I also walked away feeling unsettled. What exactly is going on inside that black box that I don’t understand?
To offer a quick recap: my therapist and I sat down and discussed my progress over the last month or so, then proceeded to listening exercises that I’ve done a few times before. Throughout, she commented on my growing confidence and poise with listening, or at least my growing willingness to persevere with deciphering what I hear. To paraphrase her words, she told me: “Your entire life, you’ve had to hang back, to resign yourself and say, ‘I can’t do it, I can’t understand this.’ You’ve felt constantly unsure and you’ve grown used to being cautious as a result. Now you have this wonderful new tool that helps you engage better, and you’re learning how to overcome that hesitation that you’ve grown used to.”
How true, not only for me but for anyone else with a hearing loss. And how nice to have this perspective articulated so clearly. Disengagement has been a survival mechanism for me for so long that it’s hard for me to commit my brain to listening, to trying to piece the sounds together despite having less than ten months’ experience with this auditory mess. The words streak by, not making any sense at first, that old response kicks in and I think “I can’t do this! For heaven's sake, I’m deaf!” and then I get overwhelmed and implode and my mind switches off. I don’t do this intentionally, I don’t think. It’s not that I mean to give up. It’s that habit (by now, almost instinct) tells me that my efforts will be futile and that trying isn’t even an option. Spoken word gibberish soup, again. So much for that.
But when I do try, strange things happen. One of today’s exercises dealt with listening to a simple sentence involving two words: “Please pick up (food item) and (food item) from the store.” Old hat, this exercise, even while the words to engrain in my auditory memory seem limitless! Some of the food words, I’d heard often enough to get right away, such as hamburgers and French fries. Others were more unexpected, and when my auditory therapist saw that I wasn’t getting them she would switch to verbally describing them to give me clues, instead of either 1) repeating the word over and over again while I got progressively more frustrated, or 2) throwing in the towel and telling me the word outright. This backroads strategy is one that she’s used from the beginning, to force me to listen in the context of language. It’s also very hard for me right now. Remember, I’m listening to full-bodied descriptive sentences without lipreading. Talk about a jump up!
So, today I sat and listened to her describing this unknown word using other unknown words, the sounds piling up and toppling over and burying me in their rush, and while I couldn’t have told you what I was hearing I also wasn’t completely overwhelmed. This time was different. The words going by sounded like English words, they sounded like language. They sounded comfy, like they could have been my friends. Even if it was impossible for me to say exactly what they were, at least after the fact – I felt more like I was brushing each one of them as they passed, but not strongly enough to sink in my hook and reel them in. Once in a while, one or two would jump up and I would grasp a fleeting phrase, but then struggle to hold on as the stream continued. “This is a… breakfast… You use it to… and it… green…” Other times, I would rustle against individual sounds but couldn’t think fast enough to assemble them into words.
Yet, out of this ghostly, translucent chaos, some sort of picture emerged. The first time this happened, I listened to my therapist’s stream of speech, sat there subconsciously ruminating, and then said, “Yogurt.”
“Very good!” she told me.
“That’s really what it was? Yogurt?”
“Yes.”
How did I ever get that? All I’d heard, at least consciously, was something about flavors and strawberries. Impossible, for my brain to make the leap from that to “yogurt.”
But then it happened again. The word in question: zucchini. I listened, gathered that my therapist was talking about a long and green vegetable, but instead of searching through my mental food vocabulary to find something that fit the bill, the word popped up and came to me right then. I knew. It had been there all along, beneath the surface of my brain, but hesitating and not knowing how to fight its way into conscious articulation.
And again. Something about cutting and breakfast and sugar, only half-grasped and feeling like a murky dream: without a doubt, it must be grapefruit. I wasn’t assembling clues, because the clues themselves hardly made sense. Unless they were assembling subconsciously, just like everything else?
Whoa whoa whoa, wait. What the eff is going on? I don’t get this. How can I so definitively say something, based on so little (read: almost nonexistent) proof? Unless the proof is there in abundance, somewhere deep within that black box, and I’m not capable of realizing it? What determines whether the sounds click together to make a word or whether they don’t? How can all this be happening without the conscious input of my work ethic or deductive reasoning or problem-solving skills, but based only on my willingness to sit there and listen to and accept what seems like chaos? How can my brain be so resourceful, all by itself and seemingly without me?
And, at the same time, how amazing is that?!
To offer a quick recap: my therapist and I sat down and discussed my progress over the last month or so, then proceeded to listening exercises that I’ve done a few times before. Throughout, she commented on my growing confidence and poise with listening, or at least my growing willingness to persevere with deciphering what I hear. To paraphrase her words, she told me: “Your entire life, you’ve had to hang back, to resign yourself and say, ‘I can’t do it, I can’t understand this.’ You’ve felt constantly unsure and you’ve grown used to being cautious as a result. Now you have this wonderful new tool that helps you engage better, and you’re learning how to overcome that hesitation that you’ve grown used to.”
How true, not only for me but for anyone else with a hearing loss. And how nice to have this perspective articulated so clearly. Disengagement has been a survival mechanism for me for so long that it’s hard for me to commit my brain to listening, to trying to piece the sounds together despite having less than ten months’ experience with this auditory mess. The words streak by, not making any sense at first, that old response kicks in and I think “I can’t do this! For heaven's sake, I’m deaf!” and then I get overwhelmed and implode and my mind switches off. I don’t do this intentionally, I don’t think. It’s not that I mean to give up. It’s that habit (by now, almost instinct) tells me that my efforts will be futile and that trying isn’t even an option. Spoken word gibberish soup, again. So much for that.
But when I do try, strange things happen. One of today’s exercises dealt with listening to a simple sentence involving two words: “Please pick up (food item) and (food item) from the store.” Old hat, this exercise, even while the words to engrain in my auditory memory seem limitless! Some of the food words, I’d heard often enough to get right away, such as hamburgers and French fries. Others were more unexpected, and when my auditory therapist saw that I wasn’t getting them she would switch to verbally describing them to give me clues, instead of either 1) repeating the word over and over again while I got progressively more frustrated, or 2) throwing in the towel and telling me the word outright. This backroads strategy is one that she’s used from the beginning, to force me to listen in the context of language. It’s also very hard for me right now. Remember, I’m listening to full-bodied descriptive sentences without lipreading. Talk about a jump up!
So, today I sat and listened to her describing this unknown word using other unknown words, the sounds piling up and toppling over and burying me in their rush, and while I couldn’t have told you what I was hearing I also wasn’t completely overwhelmed. This time was different. The words going by sounded like English words, they sounded like language. They sounded comfy, like they could have been my friends. Even if it was impossible for me to say exactly what they were, at least after the fact – I felt more like I was brushing each one of them as they passed, but not strongly enough to sink in my hook and reel them in. Once in a while, one or two would jump up and I would grasp a fleeting phrase, but then struggle to hold on as the stream continued. “This is a… breakfast… You use it to… and it… green…” Other times, I would rustle against individual sounds but couldn’t think fast enough to assemble them into words.
Yet, out of this ghostly, translucent chaos, some sort of picture emerged. The first time this happened, I listened to my therapist’s stream of speech, sat there subconsciously ruminating, and then said, “Yogurt.”
“Very good!” she told me.
“That’s really what it was? Yogurt?”
“Yes.”
How did I ever get that? All I’d heard, at least consciously, was something about flavors and strawberries. Impossible, for my brain to make the leap from that to “yogurt.”
But then it happened again. The word in question: zucchini. I listened, gathered that my therapist was talking about a long and green vegetable, but instead of searching through my mental food vocabulary to find something that fit the bill, the word popped up and came to me right then. I knew. It had been there all along, beneath the surface of my brain, but hesitating and not knowing how to fight its way into conscious articulation.
And again. Something about cutting and breakfast and sugar, only half-grasped and feeling like a murky dream: without a doubt, it must be grapefruit. I wasn’t assembling clues, because the clues themselves hardly made sense. Unless they were assembling subconsciously, just like everything else?
Whoa whoa whoa, wait. What the eff is going on? I don’t get this. How can I so definitively say something, based on so little (read: almost nonexistent) proof? Unless the proof is there in abundance, somewhere deep within that black box, and I’m not capable of realizing it? What determines whether the sounds click together to make a word or whether they don’t? How can all this be happening without the conscious input of my work ethic or deductive reasoning or problem-solving skills, but based only on my willingness to sit there and listen to and accept what seems like chaos? How can my brain be so resourceful, all by itself and seemingly without me?
And, at the same time, how amazing is that?!
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Written While Procrastinating
It's amazing how, even on a gloomy overcast day that's robbed me of an hour's sleep, I'm able to sit listening to this solo piano station on Pandora and automatically feel energized.
It's amazing how, on the good songs, the notes shoot up and something in me rises too, like muscles heaving as I inhale sweet clear air and turn back to my textbooks with greater gusto.
It's amazing how much of this I don't understand, yet how I still gravitate to something just because it "sounds good."
It's even amazing how my sister laughs at me and says, "You used to hate music!"
So "hate" probably isn't the most accurate word to use here. But point conceded. Very, very gladly conceded.
It's amazing how, on the good songs, the notes shoot up and something in me rises too, like muscles heaving as I inhale sweet clear air and turn back to my textbooks with greater gusto.
It's amazing how much of this I don't understand, yet how I still gravitate to something just because it "sounds good."
It's even amazing how my sister laughs at me and says, "You used to hate music!"
So "hate" probably isn't the most accurate word to use here. But point conceded. Very, very gladly conceded.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
On Noises That Stimulate Wonder
 |
| Crunchy, crunchy leaves... |
Contrary to my last post, not all sounds make me nuts - more often than not, it can be exhilarating to have my concentration disrupted, to have the world tug at my attention and insist that I perceive something, regardless of how small, in a wondrously different way. Of course, this has been happening all along with the CI, but here's the most recent chronicle.
This is my first fall of experiencing such vibrant, dynamic sound. Thus, when I walk outside, I find myself directly experiencing the things I've, until now, only read and heard about secondhand. Yes, I knew leaves crunched, and maybe I could hear that a teensy bit with my hearing aid - but then it was only a dull whisper, not like this. Not this crisp, crackly, amazing noise that so perfectly matches the chill edge in the air outside. I've taken to walking - no, stomping - through them whenever possible. Around me I can hear branches rustling, birds, other people talking as they pass, doors closing, occasional cars. When the breeze picks up, it is one of my favorite sounds, so soft and whistling and elusive. I feel like I could listen to it all day. There's a lot of cobblestone on the roads around here, and my most recent game is stepping from one surface to another, from smooth sidewalk to bumpy stone to cracked asphalt to gravel, and seeing how the sound changes. I shuffle my feet, tread lightly, stamp, vary my gait, and the fact that I hear something different each time is just... stunning.
Even while I'm inside, noises sneak up on me when I don't expect them. Last night, while reading for class with a pencil in hand, it suddenly struck me that each time the lead touched the page, I heard something. Even from way down in my lap. Scratch. Scratch. I was mystified at first, and then felt as if a light bulb had switched on - the scribble of a pencil! But of course! Suddenly jubilant, I scrambled to find a piece of scrap paper, then sat scribbling, scribbling, writing my name and other random words, scrawling out in cursive versus print, listening and grinning like a fool. It was only a pencil, but hearing it was like extending my reach even farther into a world I'd never really imagined. Other sounds keep making me feel the same way: the peel ripping off an orange or a banana, the constant rustle of clothes, the stir of my hair in its ponytail, the squeak of my hands on the glass or the china, the umbrella popping open. Each time the thrill of discovery is the same. It is this thrill that I love most about the CI, this sense of wonder that seems inexplicable (and maybe incompehensible) to anyone but myself.
How amazing, that the world has sounds like these! And how lucky I am, to be able to experience them!
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