Dance, Dance, Dance

It's Halloween. And what hearing people do for Halloween is dress up and go out dancing. Now, the dressing up part (and the carving pumpkins, and the eating candy) is definitely not foreign to me, but... music? dancing? These are things I've resolutely avoided since those awkward high school days, when I remember standing on the edge of the dance floor, sort of feeling the music thrumming through the floor, but not feeling at all inspired to move to it. Whenever I tried, I just felt stupid, like I was play-acting or pretending to be something I was not. The beat could be vaguely pleasant, but there was nothing exciting, nothing interesting at all in music for me.

Fast-forward a couple of years, to last night. My first time out at a dance party since the CI. I find myself in a dim room full of spinning disco lights and swaying bodies. Yes, I am in costume, as is everyone else. The speakers loom yards away, and my group of friends has started dancing right in front of them. The beat roars, pulses, rushes through my head until I almost cannot think of anything else. It tingles at my feet and up through my spine, more real and alive than it has ever been. But though I step back and forth from foot to foot, I realize that I do not know how to dance at all. I haven't done it before, and though I like the music my body does not know how it should respond. The bass is so heavy it roots me to the floor. I want to stand here and close my eyes and breathe. There's no tingling melody, and I cannot understand the words even though everyone around me is singing along.

Still, I dance. Not well, and often feeling like the song will wrench away and leave me stranded, but dancing nevertheless. Slowly my body loosens up, and although the noise teeters on the overwhelming (if only someone would explain what all this music is doing, what it's saying, where it's going), I find that I'm enjoying myself. I enjoy seeing how the other dancers interact, how they respond to the pulsing beat all around us, enjoy wondering how and why my body wants to move the way it does. I am stepping, moving, and though it feels strange, it is also exciting and new.

For a time, that is. After half an hour, my pleasure is ebbing. Everything at the dance club has suddenly become too much: the heat, the bodies, the light, and above all this music rattling through my head. My long-deafened brain can't take it anymore. Overstimulation is looming, and gasping I yell to my friends (thinking all the while, if only they signed, I wouldn't have to yell) that I'm done, I'm going out.

Weaving through the crowd, then outside into the cool night air, I reach up and rip off the magnet. The tension in my head releases as the CI dangles loosely in my hand. Ah, yes. Let there be silence.

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!

On Noises That Ruin My Concentration

Oh, there's a noise over there? Really? Okay, let's look. Oh, another noise? Wait, that one was only the door closing, not that important. Thank you for being so attentive, but let's concentrate now... I said let's concentrate! Yes, I know something else just happened in the corner, but it's not important either - are you listening to me? I said, are you listening? Come back over here! No, I don't know what that noise was, but I don't care - stop! We have more important things to do! All right. Thank you. Sit down. We are reading this book right now, and - yes, I know someone just coughed. At least, I think it was a cough - no, we are not looking! We are focusing! Hey, come back and sit down!

This is the way my CI makes me feel in the library. After four months, the noises that most fascinate my brain are the small ones, the rustlings in the corners and the muttered conversations far away - just the noises that, unfortunately, most distract my studies.

I used to think libraries were quiet places. Wrong. In principle everyone is working to keep the silence, but that doesn't stop the constant influx of sudden noises: floorboards creaking, doors clicking shut, pages rustling, people coughing. Aaargh! How am I supposed to think like this? My brain becomes hyperalert, my thought processes shatter. Never, never has studying been like this. In desperation to shut out all the clutter, I'm driven to music - which in itself can be distracting. (The other day I sat staring out the window and listening to Ravel's "Bolero" for ten minutes before I realized I wasn't reading.)

Forget the library! I'll try other places instead. But, even in my room, the sounds of the house creep in. The heaters and pipes and fans, plus who knows what else. Last week I went nuts for several minutes before realizing that the voices I was hearing (which I'd been worried I was imagining) were in fact wafting up through a crack in my window from the patio outside. There, when I looked, two people were talking in normal voices twenty feet below. Wow, and I heard that?

Even in a public place like a bus or a train, my mind is not completely my own. It keeps cavorting off to investigate murmured conversation many feet away, or the sounds of people heaving sighs and shifting in their seats. I'm reminded, moment by moment, that I am not alone or in isolation, but surrounded by others who are as functioning and alive as me. That's reassuring, in a way. But... but I like cutting the world off sometimes and sitting inside my own mind!

Too bad. Everything that moves makes a sound. That's been the rule from day one. Now - focus, focus, focus!

Advocacy, Really?

The older I get, the more interested I become in disability advocacy - mostly from wanting to apply my personal experiences toward positive change. Right now, though, I'm a bit frustrated (disillusioned?) with the advocacy scene in general.

Here's why. Today I attended a meeting for a disability advocacy group I'd gotten wind of, keen to contribute my abilities and perspectives. Of course, I went expecting no help from sign language or interpreters, and expecting little general deaf awareness - but, hey, since these people were already passionate about accessibility, wouldn't they be likely to really "get it" and communicate efficiently anyway? It turns out, no.

The scene, I thought, ended up being a bit ironic. Here's a small group of sharp, able-bodied people sitting and conversing avidly about how to solve disability and accessibility-related issues - all while forgetting the elephant in the room, that there is a disabled person in their midst, a person who is still struggling to engage despite all their well-intentioned talk. Argh. They all came across as inconsiderate - even though I am sure this was not their intention. And, from my end, asking people to slow down and speak in turn only goes so far. People forget, get wrapped up in their own ideas. All my CI did to help was pick up on the traffic noises outside, plus the bartender pouring drinks, wiping counters, and sliding chairs across the floor. Thanks a lot.

I won't go on, but I will say this at least. True inclusiveness requires action, directed toward the people whose needs are most immediate - not only theoretical strategies. Walking the talk, so to speak. General "advocacy" means nothing if it's impersonal.

Seeing Another Language

During a rest stop on a road trip this past weekend, I glimpsed some hands moving across the room. When I looked up, my eyes fell on five or six deaf guys sitting at a table, signing animatedly to each other. A few tables down from them, another group sat, also signing. Immediately my heart leapt - as it always does, at seeing sign language used so fluidly and openly. But, of course, both groups were conversing in British Sign Language, which is completely different from ASL.

Oh. That's right, this is the UK.

If it had been ASL, I reckon I would have approached and struck up a conversation. But BSL was completely foreign to me. The facial expressions were natural and similar to ASL, and some of the gestures seemed intuitive enough. (Ha, my hearing friends are always demanding that I explain, "Why do you sign ___ this way? It doesn't make sense!" - yet this was exactly what I found myself doing yesterday.) As I watched, I realized that this was the first time I'd seen a group of deaf people since getting my CI, and I couldn't even understand them. How strange that felt. I'm far too used to having the meaning of speech evade me - but never, never sign.

That said, I've started learning the BSL alphabet (which seems ridiculous - a two-handed alphabet, really?) and hopefully will make some progress soon...

Wow.

Something very, very cool happened today.

I had been looking around a small clothes shop in Oxford and was about to leave when the proprietor asked if I needed help finding anything. I said I was fine, thanks, and turned to walk out the door when I heard his voice behind me. I was not looking at him, but it said, quite clearly and distinctly, "Have a good day."

What? I could not believe my ears. It had been as simple as that. I heard him, and I understood. Snap, in an instant. There was no uncertainty, no frustration, no in-between struggle. Barely containing my own astonishment, I told him, "You too," and stepped out onto the bustling and noisy High Street.

Now, this exchange might sound trivial and not worth reporting, but for me it was a jaw-dropping breakthrough, a moment in which I literally functioned like a hearing person. That's just... unimaginable.

Whoo-hoo!

National Disability Awareness Month

The month of October is National Disability Awareness Month in the U.S. (how can it be October already?!). Actually, as designated by Congress it's National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and anyone who has talked to me about my school and work experiences knows how strongly I feel about disability and level-playing-field accessibility vis-a-vis the common buzzphrase of "diversity."

But, that aside, I'd like to take a moment on this blog to promote real disability awareness - not only in the workplace but everywhere else. All too often, awareness is the crux that allows us to see past our first impressions to grasp a person's true substance and character. And all too often, a "disability" is just something that requires a change in perspective or lifestyle, not a tragic or overbearing handicap.

From my own standpoint, I see my disability not simply as that, a disability, but as one of the strongest shaping forces of my experience. More than anything else, being deaf has allowed me to better understand the things that are important in life, as well as the people who are truly worthwhile. So, in that regard, I can consider myself fortunate - and also obliged to help others find their way, even as I keep experimenting with mine.

Off my soapbox now. But never underestimate the impact of an open, inquiring, yet discerning mind.

The Sounds of the UK

In London, the frequent sound of police sirens. Oh yeah, this would be part of living in a big city. Soon I notice and recognize them even when tucked away inside a building, through several walls. Sometimes when walking down the street I hear them and stop and look, startled and somewhat enthralled by how they pierce my ears. The hearing people around me keep moving, their heads down. Hey, it's only sirens.

The screech of the metro (or "tube") rails, especially around corners. This sound makes me feel more nervous about being suspended on such narrow tracks, under the mass of earth that supports the roaring city above. I can hear the cars rattle. Click, click, click. It's the sound of my own motion, rushing headlong. At the stops, the sound of an oncoming train makes me squint down the tunnel's dark hole even before the headlight has rounded the turn into the station.

Walking beside the Thames river at morning - wait, what's that? It sounds like it's coming from above, sounds like a pulsing honking noise, unlike anything I've heard before. I stop, whirl around, and look. Nothing. But as soon as I've given up on the sound and continued on my way, a spectacular flock of geese, at least fifty of them, swoops right down on me and glides across the water, spreading their racket as they fly. Those birds making that noise? And I heard it from that far away? Wow!

On the same walk, an eight boat goes streaking past, the Oxford rowers pulling their oars in unison. And I hear them chanting from across the water, stroke by stroke. In. Out. I can't make out the words, but I stand and watch them, listening until the sound fades at several hundred yards. When other boats go by I can hear the cox's voice. Now I see what people mean when they say sound carries over water.

At dinner, someone proposes a toast. He clinks the wine glass right beside me and it is ringing, ringing, surprisingly bold and clear. All around the hall, people fall silent and turn to look. It's only a glass, and I would once have wondered how it could penetrate so many layers of conversation. But now it's clear to me why they're lookng; the sound literally fills the corners of the room.

In an old wood-paneled chapel, someone is upstairs playing the organ. The pipes are huge, stretching up to the vaulted Gothic-style ceiling, and the sound is slightly unearthly. Ringing, resonant, a bit disembodied. (In Paris, in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, my sister said the organ sounded like an exorcist.) Again, the sound fills the room. I played the piano many times over the summer, but this instrument sounds like so much more.

The constant bells that fill the city of Oxford, especially when within hearing range of the many churches and cathedrals. Some deeper and clanging, others small and tinkling. But always bells, always tracking the time of the day. On that note, I am startled to hear the huge hands on the clocks ticking dozens of feet above, as I stand gazing up from the cobblestone street. It strikes me that I am hearing the rhythm of life going by.

And the tang of British accents, of course. More on that another time.

Reflections

The summer is almost over; my return to classes and university life is imminent. This change of pace, I feel, commands a bit of reflection.

Looking back, I am not the same person I was in June. This statement, of course, is true after almost any summer, but mine has been unusually enlightening. It was not a summer that I looked forward to, at first. I only saw the void of the unknown, combined with mundane home life and a separation from my friends and independent lifestyle. Yet I emerge from it having discovered so much, and feeling so eager to go on discovering more.

Only now do I have the presence of mind to look back at myself, pre-cochlear implant, and realize just how much I was struggling with. At times, I remember feeling as if I had the entire weight and expectations of the hearing world on my shoulders. As highly developed as my skills were, I couldn’t quite handle that burden, and I don’t think even I realized how unhappy I was at times. Now, challenges still lie ahead, and my listening skills are still far from perfect, but I’m empowered by the thought that I can change, that I can progress. This in itself has brought unexpected peace.

I had my three-month checkup and remapping this past Monday. In the days and weeks immediately before the appointment, I’d become increasingly dissatisfied with the sound quality from the CI. I’d had a while to acclimate to that program, so that as a result the volume felt diminished, sometimes making me strain to hear. My head was no longer full of sound – a feeling which, in all honesty, I’ve come to crave. During my appointment, I must have sounded like a drug addict – more, give me more! But, interestingly, my audiologist explained that the purpose of this remapping wasn’t as simple as turning the volume up. It was time to tweak in other ways, and to begin negotiating the fine balance between volume and clarity. A huge leap up in electrode volume would likely have negatively affected the clarity from the CI – just like, when a person shouts, the increased volume doesn’t make his/her voice any clearer. Often quite the opposite. (This is something hearing people frequently don’t realize; shouting at me doesn’t help.) The bottom line is: I have to continue learning how to use what I’ve got.

Still, we did increase the electrode input, and adjusted the balance of stimulation across the array. And, since then, the subtle improvements in the sound quality with the CI have left me amazed. Music – oh, music, who would have thought I’d feel the notes so physically and personally? A friend of mine recently challenged me to think about dominant chords and the tension buildup and release inherent in any musical piece. I still don’t really understand how or why one chord can be “dominant” over another (C versus G? what?), but while listening to classical right after my remapping I felt that tension – felt the chords building, swelling, then abiding. I can’t quite describe what it sounded like; I experienced it more in the form of a physical response. In any case, it was a real “wow” moment! In the days since, my iTunes (fleshed out with a compilation of songs from one of my best friends) has gotten rather heavy use…

Since the remapping, even people’s voices are sounding smoother and more natural than ever. I was startled to discover how rich and resonant the reader on my audiobooks sounded – quite different from the mechanical robot (slash duck) I heard at the beginning! Who’d’ve thunk it, there’s a real human voice on that CD! I keep noticing other environmental sounds poking through, too – the boink-boink of elastic bands, my fingers rubbing against the grain of wood, other people chewing food across the room (slightly gross). The last few days and weeks have really marked the first time that the CI has started feeling like an inherent part of me. By all accounts, this normalization does tend to happen at around three months – hurrah, the worst is over! And I still have a steep learning curve ahead. I still tend to set the bar a little too high while practicing, and resultantly come down too hard on myself – but who would have thought I’d feel this optimistic, compared with the unpleasant chaos of two months ago?

All that said, this is the last post I will make on this blog for a little while. I’m currently preparing to leave for a quarter abroad at Oxford. (Follow my travels at http://anglobibliophile.blogspot.com/.) Upon reflection, my hearing experiences this summer have prepared me for this further leap into the unknown – for what could be more unknown to me than sound? Comparatively, living in a foreign country seems like a piece of cake!

Now we’ll have to see how my baby CI helps me cope with those British accents!

Piece by Piece

The practice continues. But now, instead of listening to words like “banana” and “corn,” over and over again (or, even more tediously, “shhh” and “mmmm”), I find myself vaulting to giddy new heights. The last few weeks have brought an explosion of words to my auditory memory, skills to my repertoire. Listening exercises, instead of being a frustrating chore, have become a way for me to open the door ever wider into the world of sound. I now practice a wild variety of sentences, and even verge on short open-set conversations. Just think, me having a conversation through listening alone! And understanding! Granted, these conversations are about very familiar topics, with very familiar family members, but this doesn’t stop me from wanting to dance around the room.

These triumphs, though, don’t come without a good deal of drill and repetition. Our exercises have encompassed a range of categories, words, and ideas – and the exciting part is that I cast my net out farther with each day. Animals. Food. Flowers. Pieces of furniture. Sports and hobbies. Names of family members, friends, and pets. Numbers, months, days of the week. Social occasions. American states. Foreign countries. Random adjectives and verbs. All of these – framed in short sentences such as “I am traveling to ____ in ____,” or “Bob likes to eat ____” – are working their way into my auditory vocabulary. Some of them I now get easily, even lazily. Others, particularly new words I have not practiced before, I find flabbergasting at first. But the common pattern, ever astonishing to me, is that once I’ve heard a word once or twice, thereafter I can understand it almost without effort. The other night, I faltered when my mother said “flower arranging” in one of our practice sentences. But, several minutes later, when it came up again – snap. I knew. My brain had latched onto those words, formed some kind of neural connection already, without my conscious input. Isn’t it amazing?

Eventually, the hope is, I’ll be familiar enough with these words that they’ll flow in and I’ll grasp them without thought. But, I’ve discovered, this will not be the whole story. Another unexpected challenge is retaining what I’ve heard – not only recognizing the pieces of the puzzle, but holding on to those pieces long enough to assemble the entire picture. Now, I’ve always had a good memory, but I find that it sometimes fails me as far as hearing goes. Case in point: practicing random phone numbers. If I see a phone number written down, I remember it easily. But hearing it – that’s a different pathway, one that my brain has never had to use before. The numbers streak by, but as soon as I’ve grasped one, another is on its way. At the end of the string, I’ll stammer and say, “Wait – I understood that when I heard it, but now it’s not there!” It’s amusing how hard this is, and I often resort to spluttering, “Eight-something-seven-something-twotwothree!”

Even funnier, to me, are my auditory faux-pases. I’ve long been used to misunderstanding what people say, through lipreading, but I’ve rarely been able to find it amusing rather than embarrassing. Now, though, I’ve been blessed with the ability to laugh (sometimes uncontrollably) at what my brain thinks I hear, before it’s learned a word properly. Take these gems from a conversation with my sister Leigh:

L: I eat mangoes. Wait, why are you laughing?

R: It’s… never mind. Say it again.

L: What? Tell me!

R: It – it sounds like you said, ‘I eat my legs!’

[Later, after we’ve calmed down again]

L: I eat watermelon.

R: You eat Ronald Reagan!

L [laughing]: They don’t even sound the same!

R: Yes, they do – say it fast, watermelonRonaldReaganwatermelon!

[Later, approaching the edge]

L: I eat apples. Okay, what is it? Tell me!

R [laughing]: You eat bottles!

Other gems abound. Sometimes the sounds are somewhat close, other times they’re way off. Where does my brain dig up these things? Once it has fastened onto a supposed ‘meaning’ for a word, it stubbornly casts that nonsensical meaning onto that word every time. Even as I protest that that can’t possibly be right, that it doesn’t make sense. I’m at odds with myself. And yes, there are lasting consequences – even though I can now recognize “watermelon” for its true meaning, I still can’t hear it without thinking “Ronald Reagan!”

At the end of the listening road (wherever that is), along with an impressive arsenal of words in my auditory dictionary, I could have some very interesting mental connotations…