Shining threads

Shining threads

Friday 31 December 2010

Born without ears

I was born without ears.

The world did not grant me that sense - a rationing for a reason I do not know.

My perspective is watching the dancers move without knowing their inspiration. Silence.

I see them talking but do not comprehend and make do in my relative isolation, drawing on inner thoughts. Thoughts without ears.

I get my kicks from other sensations.

Knowing life through my tongue and touch, smell and eyes.

They say (the ubiquitous, abstract they) that a loss of one sense leads to a sharpening of others but how would I know? What is, is all I have known and I suspect the sentiment was formulated to make those endowed with all five, feel better about their luck.

I was born without ears, though I cried through the tears on my birth and everyone else heard.

The June sun shone through and another life emerged to witness existence and make its mark.

I woke up somewhere down the road - when do memories start? - and I was one without - marked by my lack - and labeled as special needs - a category apart, with a need to be 'integrated' as best as possible.

You make the best of things - if you are sensible - once you have put aside anger and existential questioning. You learn to see the upside in your situation - I have my own language - we have our own language in sign - which affords us skills and opportunities which others don't have. I notice other things - perhaps this is what is meant by the compensatory gain. And I think and dream in silent sign - you could never imagine. Even God signs his wisdom to me: a non-dual message using both hands.

I was born without ears and I shall die without ears. As long as medical science remains helpless. Religion promises healing of hearing but perhaps that is just metaphor. My journey has not led me to those waters where I place myself at the mercy of the Divine.

Would I want it if I could be given my ears back? Might I go mad? Would sound make any sense? Perhaps, like Van Gogh, I would cut them off again, repulsed by the sonic onslaught that was unleashed.

Sometimes I do wonder. I try to imagine sound. See how the normal people react and put myself in their shoes. I can dance, of course, but not for the same reasons, or not all the same reasons as them. Sometimes I follow their movements - they are my visual beat and melody, with their stomping feet and arms in the air. Sometimes I just do it for myself and on my own terms and in my own way.

I was born without ears - that was my fate. I could have been born in any period of history, into poverty or great wealth. With stupidity or genius. I could have been dumb or blind or had any of the physical illnesses and conditions. But I was born without ears and, whilst it is not what 'I' would have chosen, it is okay.

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