auris interna

Tinnitus: January, thin rain becoming ice

Now footsteps on shingle. Make of it what you will. Sea-birds roost
on the breakwaters, accustomed, of course, to twilight.
The spirit-lamp in that house on the headland could easily fall
and spill
and the fire burn all night. Some time later, a subtle ghost,
yourself in memory perhaps, might well set foot
up there amid clinker and smoke, the whole place silent and still
except you bring in the tic of cooling timbers, and then the birds
in flight.
*
Now chains through gravel. Make of it what you will.

David Harsent 
(from today's Guardian)

Some of them are mine, too. At night, the fairy flies by my right ear tinkling her bells, a mean fairy granting no wishes. On most days, in my left ear, a steady wind is blowing through a vast field of swishing dry sugar cane in central Mauritius while I am leaning my head out off the window, seasick and cold so far below the equator. But most of all, the hum, deep and low, that old river barge slowly passing through my left ear, forever and ever. There is no harmony, no rhythm, no pleasure in it. And no surprise any longer. To be at the mercy of such tiny events inside the minute magic spirals of my damaged inner ears, even that had to become part of my life. Mostly now, tedious, boring. So what.

 

Very familiar sensation:


And then the hum, always that hum, which maybe wasn't an echo after all, but the sound of time passing.

Jennifer Egan, "A visit from the goon squad", last page.

the fairy bells, the river barge, the hissing pressure valve and the fridge

tinnitus:

Latin, ringing, from tinnire to ring, of imitative origin, plural tinniti

First came the fairy bells, years ago, souvenir from India, Delhi-belly and long overnight train journeys. Benign tinkling in my right ear. Gentle, almost a comfort, never a bother, honestly.

Last September after I collapsed in the night pulling down with me the small sideboard from the upstairs landing and banging my head on the banisters the river barge arrived in my left ear, a steady low drone mostly, occasionally swelling into a louder more urgent hammering filling the whole head. At first I could not believe that this sound was only for me to hear and I would get up in the night closing windows, even walking down towards the river to see and check. I battled with this one, still do at times. I have been told that this is a definite symptom of autoimmune inner ear diseases, a constant reminder of permanent damage.

In February the pressure valve started its hissing in both ears. I often think that what's hissing is my life and that it will go on for as long as there is life inside me to hiss away. Like excess steam.

The fridge noise comes and goes, competing with the river barge in my left ear. It's nothing, really. It's too much, really.

My head, my hearing has become a noisy playground, a battlefield at times. 

Silence is only possible outdoors, with birdsong and wind and actual river barges masking these intruders. 

But there is the wonderful elasticity of the brain. And the faint hope of relearning and relistening.