This happens more during the fall than the winter but sitting around a fire pit is both wonderful and woeful for me.
I love the feel, the sight, and even the sound of sitting around a fire. I’m not an adventurous lad. I’m not an outdoorsy type. Sure I love to hike, to spend time in the woods, but I haven’t been camping in eons. Even so, a good fire on a quiet night under the stars is magical. When Pam and I were going to New Hampshire every fall, we’d always look for an AirBnB with a firepit. We would sit out under the stars and just watch the fire. (And Weezy. Depending on the chairs the place had, he wouldn’t sit comfortably in one of our laps and would roam the darkened yard..) There was no need to talk. We’d just enjoy the moment in a comfortable silence. But when Pam did have something to say, my poor little ears had trouble. And that’s where I can take this post in a different direction.
One of my neighbors has a fire pit. During the pandemic, we’d go out on a semi-regular basis to catch-up. During normal times, some voices, like Rachel’s, I have no trouble hearing. Others, like Talya’s, I would struggle with. During COVID times, the light and the distance required by the fire, conspired to make active listening that much more challenging.
The flickering light makes it difficult to read lips. And when the fire dies down it’s all but impossible. I need to read lips because the others are far enough away to stretch the limit of my bionic ears. The farther away a person is, the greater opportunity for the sound to fade. All sound fades over distance. Which is why I stand close to whomever I’m speaking with, sometimes uncomfortably close. But I don’t have the opportunity to stand closer to someone around the fire. Not because I’m sitting (#sorrynotsorry) but because there’s a doggone fire between us! That fire provided the perfect social distancing buffer that COVID demanded. It sure beat those stickers on the floor that no one paid attention to.
I’d not yet begun to speak up for my hearing needs. Because I had a hearing buddy. Pam would always know when someone was speaking too quickly, too quietly, too far-away-ly, for me to hear. And she’d repeat it. I also had a built in excuse to miss what someone said. No, not my hearing. Weezy. He would come with us and need some a-wrangling,. He’d curl up on my lap for a bit. Then he’d get bored and roam around the yard. I’d be holding his leash and so would be distracted.
Those times when it was too cold for Weezy, we’d leave him at home. Then I’d only have my biological excuse for not hearing. I’d bring my active listening to bear. But active listening with nature’s noise-maker in the middle of the scene not only makes my activity harder but it’s also distracting. I love the snapping, the crackling, the popping (why do I suddenly want Rice Cripsies?) of the fire. (It’s so comforting that a winter fire is one of the tinnitus masking sounds I use on my Resound Relief app.) I love the warming, the fluttering, the soothing feeling of the heat of the fire. I love the wavering, the flickering, the stretching sight of the flames of the fire. That’s why I loved to sit around the fire though it taxed both my deafness and my introversion.
All this love made it easier to give up active listening. As the fire slowly burned lower, taking the light I needed to lip-read down with it, I’d lean forward ever-so-slightly and tilt my head to bring my left aid’s mic to bear on the conversation.(I don’t know why, but it’s always my left ear.) If that wasn’t enough, I’d turn up the aids. That would make the fire louder, too, but it was dying down and so was softer. As I’ve said before in these pages, I very rarely catch every word someone says. When sitting around a fire, I never catch every word someone says. It usually didn’t matter if I caught enough to know what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks was being said. It usually wasn’t being said to me.
As an introvert, I rarely chime in on a conversation. As an introvert, I even more rarely start a conversation. That fit nicely with my deafness as the light of the fire drowned my attempts to catch enough to participate. And when my thoughts were called for, I could count on Pam to catch me up. And when Paige fed the fire which stoked the flame, I’d turn down my aids again so the fire would wash away the voices. With the light brighter, I could read lips again anyway. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Whether by design or dumb luck, I always ended up sitting closest to Talya. Sitting closest to the person whom I have the most trouble hearing is a habit. When Charlotte was my assistant director, I’d always consciously sit next to her during meetings. While there was no such intention during the fire pits, my unconscious must have remembered that and did me a solid. The voices of others farther away, ended up being those voices I had least trouble with. Which isn’t to say no trouble. Because of all the sound and the fury of the fire signifying, well, something, trouble hearing, in this case, I’d have to put in a good bit of work for this leisure time.
In more ways than one,
Listening around a fire.
Sitting and hearing.
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