It’s that time of the day.
My hearing devices have done their duty – and I’m done with them.
They need a break to recharge from their job of amplifying the world, of trying to make sense of words, of trying to identify the multiple swishhh-sounds that could be anything from a fan to the dishwasher or a passing car.
And my brain needs a break from them and the barrage of sound they draw in.
It could be at the end of the day, bedtime, midday, or when the work is done and my brain needs – just anything but sound.
When they come off – gently removed or pulled off in frustration,
My ears go dark, and my eyes alight. Because until I lower my lids, vision becomes my source of information, with no help from sound.
My eyes read captions, printed words, my husband’s lips. They take meaning from my cat’s tail moving.
It’s peaceful for some people, this cessation of sound.
Except, for me, sound never stops. I no longer remember or can even imagine what it’s like to have the sound stop.
When my ears go dark, an inner world lights up.
For tinnitus-people, inner sounds are sparked by the outer silence, roaring into action, uninhibited by sound from ‘out there’.
When my ears go dark and head noise fires up, I must find sleep or engage my mind with a book, nature, Netflix.
But first, I must acknowledge the sounds in my head which are varied and unrelenting. Whooshing, shooshing, purring, rumbling, roaring up mountains and crashing down the other side, getting louder, louder, louder.
I meditate to accept my “T” as part of me – and not as a noisy cancer that can force me to my knees. It’s real and I deal with it –
When my ears go dark.
