I can be walking in a hallway at work, someone is behind me and I think suddenly that I've heard this person call my name. I turn around to ask what they want because I definitely don't want them to think I just ignored them - that would be worse - but I can see from their surprised expression that they are thinking, "Geez, where did THAT come from?" We both shrug and I think, "Oh my goodness, where DID that come from?"
Another recent example of this phenomena: my son Dennis says something to me about who-knows-what while standing next to me in the kitchen as I fry cutlets. I don't really catch what he says but I am feeling brave, "Did you just say, Alex ate escargot?" I say this despite thinking it highly unlikely that my traveling-abroad son actually ate snails in a pub in England. Dennis thinks it is amusing how far off the mark I am. Lucky for me, I think so too.
Just as an aside, Alex eventually did eat escargot, but it was in Paris a few weeks later, so maybe I'm just clairvoyant and what I hear inside my head is not just made up stuff. Now, if I can only hear the lottery numbers. Please.
I can also effectively block out the entire world if I wish to. I have honed this art to perfection while living with children, dogs and very, very loud macaws. I can create a bubble around myself no matter where I am or what I am doing and just float happily inside, neither listening to nor caring what is going on around me. This is a nice trick that comes in handy and amazes anyone who witnesses it first-hand though these same amazed people are usually also annoyed that I just completely ignored them.
For most of my life I have had good hearing at the high notes and bad hearing at the low. This state has changed recently. After my last hearing test, I was told that the higher pitches are also now tanking. Since hearing lost is hearing never to be found, it appears I am one step closer to the Miracle Ear.
And while we are on the subject, I might as well confess that the rest of my physical senses are also only shadows of what they once were. I don't drive any place unfamiliar at night because I can't read the road signs until I am right under them. The glorious scent of the sea which once had the power to make me instantaneously blissful, is almost totally lost to me. Pain exists in more parts of my body than I can get pleasure from, so enough said there. Thankfully, I can still taste food fairly well, at least for now, and maybe that's one reason my weight seems to rise with my age.
But the point of mentioning all this is not to lament the losses inherent to aging but to celebrate what the loss makes room for. There are certainly plenty of worse things in this world than fading senses. In fact, what I have found to be true for me is that as the external physical senses have faded, the internal, eternal sense is growing. And this is a darn good thing.
The internal, eternal sense is the ones that scientists don't know exists. But it does. It's just like when we were growing up, scientists did not know why the dinosaurs disappeared. There had to be a cause; everyone knew there had to be a cause. Now we know what that cause was: a giant meteor from outer space landed in Mexico, wiping them all out. In 1968, who would have thunk it?
One day, maybe scientists will be able to identify the sense that grows in place of the ones that fade. And I'm guessing that maybe they'll call it: wisdom.
When I was younger, my eyes saw only what was plainly in front of of me. Now I can see further into the shadows where things are hidden. Where once I trusted only what was "out there;" now I can trust what lies "in here." Where once I sought to BE beautiful, smart, successful; now I seek these things for others. Where once I might have done wrong because it was easy; now I am inclined to do right regardless of cost. And where once I could not block out the madness of the world; I can finally hear the silence within.
There is peace in all this, and a sense that aging is not quite all the loss I expected it to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment