Bridges between soul and the wider world, my sight and hearing are threatening to return to dust ahead of the rest of the package. In my 70th year, my eyes are dimming a bit. Glaucoma runs in the family. Fine doctors in Yorba Linda and Arcadia prescribed eye drops that have kept the disease at bay so far. But now cataracts are starting to form. I don’t notice much of a change, but I’m told it’s like seeing the world through watery Coke. Brighter brights would delight me if I suddenly saw with 30-year-old eyes. Plus there’s the beating many of us give our eyesight staring at these screens, failing to take the periodic breaks experts recommend. I’m making a lot more typos these days. Brighter brights would delight me if I suddenly saw with 30-year-old eyes. Plus there’s the beating many of us give our eyesight staring at these screens, failing to take the periodic breaks experts recommend. I’m making a lot more typos these days.
But my eyesight’s pretty good, all things considered. My myopia has actually improved a little with age. I’m not to the stage of staring longing into loved ones’ faces or at the snow-capped San Gabriels and praying that memory will outlive sense. Not so with my moderate to severe hearing loss. Now that I wear hearing aids, it’s alarming how bad it is. I don’t need glasses or contacts to see, and reading is actually easier without them. but I do need the little mechanical miracles to feel like an effective person. Battery life is an issue on a long day or plane flight. A malfunction takes me over until it’s fixed.
It’s deepened my empathy for those with hearing loss all their lives and for everyone who is made to feel ashamed because they lack some physical or mental capacity. I also feel a Lenten invitation to self-awareness. I am in training not to be a crabby older person in doctors’ offices. When I can’t hear a cashier, a voice inside me complains that they should speak louder if they’re wearing a mask, or that young people these days talk too fast. But it’s not their fault. Nor mine, for that matter. Even moments such as these between two people can be joyful if I don’t let my self-consciousness and shame get in the way.
Not being able to hear the sound of Kathy’s and our children’s laughter has begun to scare me, and losing music as well. Even with my hearing aids, the sound doesn’t always cohere tonically, and as with all things, the pleasure is in the harmony. I blame today’s compressed audio files as well as a cognitive disconnect that can occur with dying ears. Hearing is a function of input plus processing. It’s better with live music, which is why you’ll find me sitting close to the orchestra three times a season at the Disney Concert Hall, soaking up as much as I can.
A considerable blessing is that I can hear music in my head. Perhaps you as well. I’m especially grateful because I’m not so good at picturing things. My mind struggles to reproduce snapshots of sandy beaches or the Grand Canyon. But I can inwardly hear “Tumbling Dice” and “O soave fanciulla,” the love duet from “La Boheme.” If you’ve seen “Moonstruck,” it’s the tune in the score the moment Cher and Nicolas Cage’s eyes meet in the scene at Lincoln Center, seven notes sung in unison by soprano and tenor that unveil the holy of holies. If I concentrate, I can imagine it in actual time and considerable detail. I tried it recently with “Rhapsody in Blue.” I sat for 18 minutes and thought the whole thing through. Not every note, of course, as a conductor could, but a pleasurable enough gist. So in 15 years, you may see me in the corner of the room, gazing into space and tapping my foot.