"We scarcely know how much of our pleasure and interest in life
comes to us through our eyes until we have to do without them;
and part of that pleasure is that the eyes can choose where to look.
But the ears can't choose where to listen."
-- Ursula K. LeGuin, Gifts
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| Self portrait with fuzzy ears 11-8-14 |
"If I listen to the world with hearts in my ears
Then surely I'll truly be able to hear."
-- Jay Woodman, "Hearts In Me"
The downside of having eye surgery is that I have to ice my eyes.
A lot.
As in, all day, a lot.
And when you have bags of frozen peas over your eyes all day, it's pretty much impossible to do much of anything else.
Except listen.
I spent most of yesterday in my pajamas stretched out on the couch. Of my five senses, my ears were pretty much the only ones working at full capacity.
My vision is temporarily shot. Obvs.
My taster is fucked from the anesthesia, so everything tastes like nothing. Except, weirdly, beef jerky.
Touch. Forget it. Everything feels uncomfortable right now.
As for smell. All I can smell is peas. They're right over my nose all day due to the aforementioned icing situation. So.
And that leaves me with my ears.
Which, it turns out, is kind of wonderful.
I listened to some television. Did you know Montel Williams sounds exactly like Barack Obama?
I also listened to The Ultimate Fighter, my secret indulgence.
I listened to the sounds that my house makes in the silence. As it turns out, an empty, silent house is anything but. So, so very much noise happening. The ticking of the clock. The wind outside. The furnace humming. The freezer doing it's little growl thing that sounds just like Chewbacca.
I listened to music. I popped in some CDs and filled the not-so-silent silence with gloriousness of The Philadelphia Orchestra performing Swan Lake. When all your other senses are dulled and the only thing you pour into the one that remains is an undiluted tonic of Tchaikovsky, it's like cannon-balling into an ice-cold river on the hottest day of the year. Bracing and beautiful.
I listened to a radio broadcast of two local football teams in their first division playoff game.
I listened to Leo and Mackenna whispering and giggling while they cuddled on the couch and ate brownies and milk.
With one of my senses heightened and extra juiced, and with all the others diminished, an otherwise boring old nothing day of recuperation turned kind of lovely.
I wasn't bored. I wasn't antsy. I wasn't frustrated.
I just ... was.
