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“I hear a symphony, a tender melody, pulling me closer”

27 Monday Jan 2014

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               “Ah things ain’t what they used to be, no no

               Where did all the blue skies go?

               Poison is the wind that blows

               from the north and south and east

               Woo mercy, mercy me, mercy farther

               Ah things ain’t what they used to be, no no”

                                             -Marvin Gaye

As a person living with a severe to profound hearing loss from birth, I experienced something for the first time in my life this past week and I’m still smiling about it. I went to the Broadway show and I understood every single word of it.

In my life thus far, I’ve had the privilege to attend dozens of productions -musicals, plays, concerts, shorts…and while I’ve enjoyed them all so much, I’ve always struggled to understand what was being said, what the context was, what the songs were expressing.

“Miss Saigon”, “Cats”, “Phantom of the Opera”, “Rent”, “Chicago, “Kiss of the Spider Woman”, “Mama Mia!”, The Vagina Monologues

Tina Turner, U2, Violent Femmes, The Temptations, Sarah McLachlan, Peter Gabriel, Depeche Mode, Jill Scott, Diane Reeves, Esperanza Spalding, Patti Smith, Buena Vista Social Club,  East Village Opera Company, Gregory Porter, Taj Mahal

Attending these events brought me great joy and I’ve never shied away from attending in spite of the fact that I was missing out on a major component.  Instead, I would focus on watching movement, observing faces, interpret music  in my own way -even so far as to imagine what was being said as empathetically as I could. In a sense, I would create my own version of the production in my head with the information available to me through my four and a half senses.

Plays could be researched beforehand to help provide context and those who attended with me would do their best to fill me in as the production progressed.  Some larger venues would have enormous monitors throughout, displaying a performer’s face so that I could catch snatches here and there.  In many cases, I would even recognize favorite songs -those I would know the lyrics by heart and could “hear” from memory. U2’s “With or Without You”, Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer”, The Temptations’  “Just My Imagination”

Watching the expressions on other concert goers’ faces would fill me with happiness and  sometimes if I was lucky I could read their lips as they sang along -my own private interpreters.  Elaborate costumes, gorgeous choreography and the energy of the crowd provided me with an incredible experience in itself. A different kind, yes, and without words but still so beautiful in its unique way.

               “You’ve given me a true love,

               and every day I thank you love

               For a feeling that’s so new

               So inviting, so exciting

               Whenever you’re near

               I hear a symphony

               A tender melody

               Pulling me closer

               Closer to your arms”

                              -Diana Ross

This past Tuesday evening, all of that changed.  My partner and I attended the incredible Mo’town The Musical -a production we’ve wanted to see for quite some time as we know one of the lead performers but because I knew I wouldn’t be able to understand most of it, my partner did not want to attend as she felt this was unfair to me.

And then we found out that this particular performance was open-captioned. So we jumped at the opportunity.

Thanks to an amazing organization called the Theatre Development Fund, Mo’town and scores of other theatre  productions are made open captioned for a selected number of performances.  A text display stationed at the side of the stage provides a simultaneous transcription of dialogue and lyrics during a live performance. Because I don’t know sign language, this was the perfect solution for me -along with thousands of others who are hard-of-hearing.

When we reached our seats and took our coats off, moments before the lights dimmed, I scanned the crowd and noticed dozens of people wearing hearing-aids and cochlear implant devices all around me.  Suddenly, as the theatre darkened, bright orange words flashed on a rectangular screen to the left of the stage as a song -one of 59 began, accompanied by a booming 18-piece orchestra.  “You’re Nobody ’til Somebody Loves You”, “Dancing in the Streets”, “War”, “My Guy”, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”…and so many more.  And I could understand every single word the performers were singing and saying.

Overwhelmingly happy, I cried.

               “You and I must make a pact

               We must bring salvation back,

               Where there is love, I’ll be there.

               I’ll reach out my hand to you

               I’ll have faith in all you do.

               Just call my name and I’ll be there.

               I’ll be there to comfort you,

               Build my world of dreams around you,

               I’m so glad that I found you.”

                              –Berry Gordy

As the story moved along and the action shifted about on the stage, in synchronous movement my head along with dozens of others around me swung back and forth from the screen back to the stage, reading quickly and then watching the performers.  Several were clapping along, many were smiling and all of us could understand.  Being able to read the words made the musical experience so much richer.  This time -for me costumes and stage decorations were icing on the cake and the choreography was so much more fun – simply because I was able to “hear” the words to the songs to which they were dancing.

Since first introducing this service to Broadway in 1997, there have been over 46,000 admissions to TDF open captioned performances. More information on this amazing organization can be found here.

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Looking at each sound within the entire mosaic.

30 Monday Dec 2013

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It’s been a while since I’ve last written and much has unfolded in my auditory world. As part of training my ear and brain to learn and recognize new sounds, I am to go to the audiologist every four weeks and receive an updated set of four incremental programs.

Each new program opens up the range of sound available to me a little at a time and this is so that my brain is not overwhelmed and therefore can adequately and somewhat calmly absorb this new world of pitch/frequency/vibration. Every seven or eight days, I increment up to the next program and I spend the week navigating that program.

To date, I’ve worked my way to the third increment within the third set of programs and I can see and feel a major difference from the very first day of initial activation -I must admit I feel like an android when I use this word but it’s industry standard and heck, there IS a wire peeking out from my hair so I might as well embrace the term whole-heartedly.

I’m now hearing more parts of sound. Because I was born with a high-frequency loss, my brain has no idea what high frequency sounds look like and therefore, this has been the most daunting part of the process. Every program has given me more access to high-frequency sounds and while it’s been amazing in its own capacity, I’ve felt so overwhelmed with the myriad of high notes out there.

What is overwhelming about this is that the sound fills my head.  I actually feel the sound. The experience of “hearing” has taken on a new dimension to me.  My eyes feel the vibrations. The space behind my forehead feels the sound and that rolls back into the inside of my head.

Silverware clattering into the drawer organizer, water turned on full blast into the kitchen sink, notebooks slapping the conference table at the beginning of a meeting, sirens of emergency vehicles a few blocks away, piles and piles of leaves rustling, clinking of glassware, brakes grinding as the subway comes to a standstill, the alarm on the exit gate that everyone uses when rushing to get out of the subway station, the ironing board screeching as it is opened and closed, even the tinkling of my own pee.  I feel the sound of my own pee inside of my eyeballs and my head.

As much as I’m enthralled with all of these brand-new mini ear experiences, at times it becomes too much.  I told Lisa, my partner that I don’t know how hearing people do it.  How do you filter out or water down the power of all of that….noise?!  On the days that I increment up to the next program, I go to bed exhausted that night. I’m crabby, irritable and I basically feel assaulted and worn out.

And then I wake up the next day, slap the magnet on along with ear piece, turn it on and it feels a little better.  Not as overwhelming. Not too unlike beginning a new work-out course and making through to your third class without wanting to chuck your water bottle at the obnoxiously perky & energetic instructor.

What I’m learning, though, through this process is that it feels more digestible to look more closely and isolate the unique sounds I’m picking up.  When I focus on the specific sounds and have a conversation with myself about what they are, I feel as though my brain catalogues the sound more rapidly.  Often on the subway ride to work in the mornings because I’m fresh and rested, I’ll take the opportunity to turn the hearing aid off in my right ear and I’ll ride with my eyes closed, listening hard. The sound of the bell tone as the train doors open. The automated voices listing the available transfers. The grind of the brakes.  The pull of the tracks as we careen around a bend.  I recognize the familiar sounds of a typical train ride and interestingly enough, I feel safe in this experience. It’s consistent.  My brain knows what to do with this particular mosaic of sounds.

It’s within the context of consistency that I’m able to then experience unusual sounds and to pick them out. On a train ride, I heard a sharp crack and turned my head to see a dropped smart phone had landed on the floor. I smiled fiendishly as I recognized that my brain was able to isolate that sound until I caught the look of dismay aimed my way by the owner of the phone. I didn’t feel that it would be fruitful to pick my way over to her and attempt to explain that I was ecstatic at hearing her phone hit the hard surface and why. She was clearly having a Monday morning.

Walking to work, I grinned happily at some poor unsuspecting fellow who sneezed right next to the magnet microphone attached to my head and I automatically replied, “Bless you!”  I can only imagine what he thought of the overzealous smile right in his face as he turned to me.  The light changed to “Walk” and I moseyed off.  I heard him sneeze!

I had an ethereal experience in the forest a few weekends ago when my friend and I went on a day hike at Storm King Mountain.  Hiking over rocks, streams and hills, I became so enamored with the isolated sound of leaves rustling past my boots that I found myself perched on a rock, staring down at all of the fallen foliage around me.  Every single step I took made my head spin. Almost stimming like a person with autism, I started shuffling slowly -experimenting with my heady ear hallucinations. When I looked up, I found that my fellow hikers were piling up behind me, staring at me oddly and all I could do was shrug and take off again, maintaining focus on pace. Which brings me to a conclusive point.

As I move onto new programs and wider ranges of sound become available, maintaining focus and continuing dialogue with my brain will be what helps me to grow comfortable with these sounds -eventually learning to filter them appropriately into a larger picture -or a mosaic.