My shirt was made out of steel wool.
Or at least that’s what it felt like as I pulled my t-shirt over my head. I’d spent a couple of ours at the beach the day before. The clouds had diffused the sunlight and I thought my parsimonious application of sunscreen would be okily dokily. Some mistakes are more painful than others.
In my defense, I’m not a frequent beach goer and this lesson was learned in 2020. The White Mountains of New Hampshire were closed to Bay Staters. So I went to The Cape. I know I’m a pasty Irish-American. I know I should have used more sunscreen. But knowing and doing are two different things. I did not go back to the beach the next day. Instead I spent the day breathing shallowly so my chest wouldn’t expand and rake hot coals across my torso. Normally, on those days that I do go to the beach, my mind isn’t on my sunscreen, it’s on my bionic ears.
I can’t pin my ambivalence towards the beach on my bionic ears. I’ve never really cared much for the place. I can’t swim well and I’m not a big fan of the heat. Once upon a time, my family had a summer place in Groton. We’d go to the beach near there occasionally. I never cared for it and I didn’t even have any bionic ears yet. Now that I do have them, I always have to make sure I have a sand-tight case to stash my aids in when I venture out into the bracingly chilly waters of the Atlantic. And when I do, I feel extremely vulnerable. Not only can I not swim well, but I also can’t hear well without my aids. Not to mention, I’m worried about something happening to them back at my spot on the beach.
It’s not all bad, though. Provided I remember to slather enough sunscreen on and can keep my aids in, beach reads are a thing. The library always has displays of easy reads every summer. While I may not read those, I do enjoy sitting outside and reading. The azure skies shining down upon me, the sometimes-lazy waves lapping the shore, the aromatic sea breeze wafting around me are all magnificent ambient sights and sounds that drown out my tinnitus as I sit and read on the beach.
I can make a go of the beach but I’d rather be in the woods. Yet they present their own set of challenges.
As I mentioned during my Spring blog, [link to it] Summer can be a challenging time for hikes. I radiate heat. You can ask anyone who has had the luck to sit next to me in the upper-atmosphere of BC’s Alumni Stadium in November. Until my late 20s, I came within a donut’s distance of 300 lbs. Now I’m closer to 200 than 300. I thought with less insulation, I’d stop running hot. And to some extent, I do. I get colder quicker. But I still get hot rather quickly, too. And that’s dangerous for bionic ears.
The tubing that connects my black and gold molds is pliable. It needs to be in order to smoothly transfer sounds captured by my bionic ears to my biologic ones. Sounds tend to ricochet off hard surfaces. Tubing is no exception. And over the course of six-months’ worth of temperature changes that cause the tubing to repeatedly expand and contract, it hardens. So if I wear the aids on a Summer hike, I’m all but baking the damned things. And, hi-ho, it’s off to the audiologist I go!
The aids themselves have few holes. Which protects against water’s malevolent influence. But they still need to have some holes. Or else the mics wouldn’t be able to pick up any sounds. During the Spring hikes public H20 enemy #1 was Spring showers. During the Summer: it’s sweat. I’ll leave that statement to stand on its own and move on. Because as we said in the 80s, it’s grody.
As an introvert, I don’t often seek out large gatherings. But when I do, Summer has a leg up on the other seasons. They’re more often than not outdoors. Remember how I said sounds bounce off hard surfaces? That’s usually what a room is. Think about the hubbub you hear in a large room versus the ruckus you hear in a large outdoor gathering. Inside there’s a physical force to the sound. The tumult of voices becomes a veritable mosh pit of sounds, slamming into the ceiling, shoving into the walls, and rebounding off both again and again. For a hard of hearing introvert, large gatherings inside are almost-literal assaults on my senses. But outside, there’s room to breathe.
Outside can be just as loud, the crush of the crowd can be just as pressing. But there are no walls to pen me in or to bat sound around. Sometimes there’s a tent that provides a ceiling of sorts but sounds can tumble off the canvas and float over and out of its confines. I still have trouble picking my speaker’s voice out of the clamor of background noise but not as much as inside. There’s more room to work with. Sounds seem thinner outside. Active listening isn’t as demanding in an outside gathering. And as an occasional bonus, there’s a chance there’s a dog somewhere! Once I’m giving permission to pet the pup, I’ve found dog owners often do away with small talk and let me focus on their doggo. No active listening required there.
I love the outdoors,
But not if it’s too dang hot.
I’m like Goldilocks.
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