The weather seemed like it was going to cooperate. It was pouring.
I’d only ever ventured forth without my bionic ears once. And it took six months to screw up the courage. I wrote about that lone experiment after it happened. But I wasn’t quaking under rain during that experiment, just dealing the aftershocks of dripping branches and drooling eaves. I was able to stow my aids in a pocket in case I needed to stuff them in. But I was not always that fortunate.
There’d been times when Weezy needed to go out whilst it was raining and we sallied out to water a hedge. I’d leave my aids in the house secure in the knowledge that the little dude loved rain as much as I did. We’d be there and back again in two shakes.
But I’d never voluntarily ignored the advice of those old American Express commercials and left home without it. And technically, I didn’t this time either.
Julie and I left our aids in her car.
Julie hatched this foolish idea because she’s reveling in having a hard of hearing partner-in-crime. As for me? As Obi-wan said: Who’s the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?
As we scurried out to the path overlooking Maine’s many rocky shores, the rain let up. I was of two minds then: relieved at not getting soaked and disappointed it wasn’t going to be a more dramatic experience. Afterwards, I was pleased that it was “just” a misty mountain hop. We got our experience without having to do the 45-minute drive back in sodden clothes.
Anyhoo, without further ado, here are my observations.
I still have a goodly amount of residual hearing so I still heard a bit. But everything was muted. That said, I felt anxious.
My hands were in constant motion. I was either rubbing the second knuckles on my thumbs with my index fingers or stuffing my hands in my pockets. The latter, I realized was something I do to provide another layer of protection to my aids. I’ve had to quickly yoink my aids out of my ears during many a summer sun shower.
I noticed that Julie was playing with her hair. Though, that could just be the humidity making a mockery of her bangs more than anxiety making a nervous tick of her hands. I asked her if she could hear anything and she said no. She was able to answer my unheard words by virtue of a DHH superpower, context clues, and my careful enunciation, which means more than just speaking the phonemes clearly. It also means shaping the words clearly. Still, on those few occasions that we communicated, I used a combination of ASL (same), gestures (holding both hands out, palms down, and pushing down to mime everything was muted for me), and choice words (no not swearing. I kept that on the inside).
Then some people appeared on the path up ahead and I forgot how to breathe. My introversion always reigns me in when I meet strangers in public. My deafness, too, gives me pause. Deafness without aids? I felt utterly inadequate, supremely defective, and so very very naked.
I always feel naked without my bionic ears. In this case, the misty rain and pushy wind tickled my external auditory canal. That bit of skin is normally under the cover of my moldings. To feel nature saying hello is uncomfortable. It’s a foreign feeling and physical annoyance that makes me feel like I’ve forgotten something, that makes me feel like I’m missing something. It takes me a moment, a squirm-inducing moment, to realize that missing doesn’t mean forgotten. And I had to do this a couple of times.
While that tingling was thanks to external factors, I felt another tingling that was thanks to internal factors.
The muted sounds surrounded me in a bubble. One that pressed against the entire back half of my body. From head to heels I felt a tingling. While I can see everything in front of me and an impressive amount to the sides of me, I can’t see a damn thing behind me (If I could have one superpower…). It’s not because of that time I was robbed walking to the T in Dorchester, either. I heard those jerk-faces pelting down the sidewalk. It may have more than a little to do with not hearing middle school classmates coming up behind me and jamming a partially chewed Lemonhead in my ear. But it’s more than either of those things. I’ve grown so accustomed to my hearing aids giving me help, that not having them in casts my security adrift. So I did what I always do, I put someone else first.
I knew I had a leg up (or an ear up as it were) on Julie. My Chewbacca legs outpace her Leia legs quite a bit. And she’s not the only person I have to measure my steps with. So I slowed my long strides to make sure I could keep her in sight. I was usually ahead of her but like I said, I’ve got great peripheral vision. I wanted to know if she needed me and I wasn’t going to hear her call from behind me. Which brings me to my next, and final, point: the volume of her voice.
My dad struggles to keep his indoor voice when his hearing isn’t being amplified, be it aids or implant. It’s ironically similar to a stranger realizing that I’m hard of hearing. They will shout their words. It’s an overcompensation that leaves us both embarrassed. Why is the instinct to go from susurrus to shout? And even then it’s an uneven shout. A shout is not made for an entire sentence, so certain words tend to fall too softly for my ears.
So when I didn’t immediately think of either my dad or a stranger on those few occasions when Julie spoke, I was impressed. Her voice was firm and even. My naked ears had no trouble picking up what she was putting down. After she read the draft of this post she said it was intentional. That it was the result of not knowing how loud she is without her aids in. She makes the concerted effort to keep her voice down. And you know what? In another in a ballooning list of connections, I do the same exact thing.
But as I write this, I see the flaw in my thinking: I didn’t have my aids in. I have no idea if her voice was over-loud.
Welp. That’s my side of the story. Now you should go read Julie’s:
https://deafbutnotreally.blog/
But before you do, time for my closing haiku:
Adventuresome, me?
Perhaps occasionally.
Home is not boring.
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