The Sound of Silence

There is no such thing as silence. There is sound in every corner of every space.

A good friend of mine is a composer at a recording studio. Hanging out with him one night, I walked into the booth where the air is as dead as I’ve ever heard.  I stood in silence. Almost. It physically hurt.

See, I don’t live in silence. My world is very loud. It crept up on me? I can’t remember any more.  I only remember the moment I recognized it. It was in Barnes & Noble and it hit me like a tidal wave. I arrived home in time to collapse onto my bedroom floor. Even that was unstable. I couldn’t tell if I was falling or lying still in space; I had no sense of space anymore. I was a terrified void. I heard sound. The sound pinned me to the existence I began to doubt.  Sound so loud it seemed my body would make those tones audible for everyone to hear. Sound has been my constant companion since.

The Dr said the only cure for my condition was to live with it, or scramble up my middle ear so nothing was left to cause a problem.  Naturally I chose to live with it. At first, with drugs, and then as I became trained to cope, without.

I had hearing tests a lot as a kid. This time it was different. No clown nose to light up. It wasn’t pass/fail anymore. I understood this test. I had passed the others, the xrays, the MRI, the psychological evaluations; everything before the audiologist. Ultimately, I failed. The sound was destroying my hearing. Slowly. There have been more tests since that day, every time hoping the loss won’t go so fast or be so permanent. Maybe the sound will one day grow tired and stop.  It could happen.

I am obsessed with sound now.  Maybe because I want to hear as much as I can before I can’t. Maybe because I hear too much noise in my head that I can’t shut off. Maybe because sound is my drug.

I listen to a lot of sound. Sometimes, when I’m most riled up, someone will put on some music and it tranquilizes me. I mean that. Halcion tranquil, I've taken the drug, it's the same effect.White noise. My salve. Most people find it irritating. It is my salvation. Without it, I’d end up in a psych ward.

My favorite sound is music. I’ve been to my fair share of concerts, ecstasy all, even if the band was terrible. I’ve spent the last decade of my life listening to music to replace silence I never hear. I don’t know much about music. I am not well versed in bands, what’s hip, what’s obscure, what’s worthy of being called music. I just listen to whatever I can access and makes me happy. No, I am juvenile about music, except for one thing: passion. If appreciation were a talent, in the words of Lady Catherine DeBurg, “I should have been a great proficient.” I am McLean’s living, breathing, littlest angel with music in my soul I can’t express.

I’ve learned to tune out sound. I sleep without ear plugs in a house of 8 girls. I simply roll over, put my bad ear up to mute the noise, and tune the rest of it out. I've learned not to pay attention to sound. I can focus "in the zone" at  loud, raging parties, and fall asleep in movie theaters. I barely notice I hear it all the time anymore. It is kind of a cruel fate- knowing one day I may not hear and learning not to hear while I can.

Sound often overwhelms me.  I’m possessive of sound. Bad sound irritates me worse than any annoyance I can imagine. In crowded rooms, I read lips. I can hear sound but I can’t recognize the sound as words in big crowds. My brain doesn’t want to filter that much noise. So I try to avoid crowds where I have to interact with people. Sound disorients me.  Sound makes me uncomfortable-the sound booth that had been silenced.  It physically hurts me when I can’t process silence that should be there; like the noise of nails on a chalkboard or Styrofoam rubbing against Styrofoam.  A whisper in my right ear sends my body into muscle spasms as if it is one giant exposed nerve. I involuntarily flick at the sound as I would a fly resting on my eyelashes.

I am drawn to the musical types. I don’t discriminate between performers and dealers. But, I don’t live that life. I’m a fish out of water there and quite awkward. Music is my drug and I abuse it like any junkie. I know my boundaries and I steer clear. That hasn't stopped me from being a mosquito drawn to a bug zapper. I can’t walk by a piano being played without stopping, I cried when I heard the story of Joshua Bell, I involuntarily stop breathing when my ears hear new and stronger drugs, I fall in love with the minds of musicians. I become obsessed with what they are capable of creating. It is an unfair advantage to put a pharm lab in front of a junkie. It is dangerous to even put a dealer in front of a junkie.  And that’s my foible. My great weakness.

I’m addicted to the sound of silence.

 "There was a woman named Ivy who seemed to hold in her mouth all of the sounds of Pauline's soul. Standing a little apart from the choir, Ivy sang the dark sweetness Pauline could not name."
-Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye