:Naiahdot

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Even with just the first of my hearing aids in, I immediately could hear so much more. The first half-hour of wearing them around the audiologist’s office was exciting, in both the enthusiasm sense and the disconcerted fear sense. While it was fun to have all these sounds that had faded away into what I called “the mud” rise back up in sweet, sharp focus, it was very unsettling. Those metaphorical pillows that I mentioned had become my comfort zone. I was used to writing off most ambient noise because I didn’t have a choice. Now, it is all back, one new-again sound after another, right on each others’ heels is vying for my attention. After that initial half hour of amusement, the constant game of “what’s that? Oh yeah…” began to take it’s toll. I am only used to so much discernable aural input, and suddenly that amount had been doubled, tripled, maybe more. It’s not really something quantifiable, I don’t think.

I found myself overwhelmed by the new level of stimulus. In the car, heading home with the kids, my eyes were just ready to burst with tears. As we got back to town, I did actually start to cry. It was not the happy-sweet emotional cry one expects at a reunion, it was an unexpected tired overstimulated cry. I felt like a newborn baby taken by its parents to some noisy function where everyone was fussing and talking. I wanted to be *home,* wanted to turn it all off. I didn’t dare try to fiddle with them while driving, and so I rode it out. As soon as we got home, I went upstairs by myself and familiarized myself with the controls and got each one set to a better level. I had Katy come up and sing me a song, while I set the volume on each of them.

I am still exhausted. It’s been about 3 1/2 hours since I fist put them on. I am settling in and getting used to it, and I’m actually really liking it. I went outside after taking Katy to school and putting Bobbie down for his nap and just laid in the sun and *listened.* Back when Heather got her newest hearing aids, I laughed so hard when she posted in her blog about how she was astounded to discover that the carpet made noise as she walked on it. I’ve had several of those today. Now, I remembered that carpet made noise, but I didn’t remember it being this noticable. I was patting a chair for Bobbie to come sit down, and was startled by the sound of my hand on the upholstery. As we were walking down the sidewalk, I noticed the sound of Katy’s feet in her flip flops. In the car, the children were each eating a sucker that Dr. Ault had given them, and I could hear them eating them, lips smacking as they sucked on them. It was adorable!

I actually don’t have my final earpieces yet. The company that makes them made a mistake and for some unknown reason, shipped them to California. Dr. Ault says he’ll bring them to me here at home, as he is planning on being in Snohomish tomorrow anyway. So, I’ll hold off on my opinions of the sound, etc, until I have them. The funny expandable foam ones that I have now are very responsive to the muscles in my head. if I chew or yawn, or even just wiggle my jaw, the sound will cut out on the side being flexed. The actual earpieces are a hard lucite and won’t do that. Even with the temporary ones, things sound, well, they sound a lot more like themselves than they used to.

I’ve had dreams since my hearing has gotten bad where I can hear people’s voices like I used to. Because of those, I felt like I remembered what things, in general, sounded like. I really had completely forgotten the distinct nature of ambient noise. It had all become one muffled, ongoing, eaily ignorable white noise for me (termed “the mud”). Now it is all back, and it keeps taking me by surprise. I just want to take a nap. My mind feels overwhelmed, needs to recallibrate itself. I’ll sleep well tonight.

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I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve.

Hearing is not a passive sense for me, as it is for most people. It has not been for the last several years. I have to try and hear. My efforts usually go somewhat unnoticed in any one-on-one interactions. I’m minding lip cues, paying close attention, riding the speaker’s cadence, and almost constantly re-running and parsing their speech in my mind. There’s a slight lag time, but it is only slight. Yeah, it takes effort, as opposed to “just, y’know, hearing it.” It does become very noticable, unfortunately, in any situation involving more than one speaker. As I am watching one person, if someone else speaks, I miss the first few words before I can look at their mouth, or worse yet, I can miss that they are speaking at all. Add this to my natural propensity to extreme shyness, and I tend to withdraw in social situations and busy myself somewhere off to the side.

Life is one, big aural blur most of the time. I can make sense out of what I focus on, but so often, too often, I find out that I have missed something. I am so grateful for the hearing that I still have, and my loss definitely seems to have slowed, and possibly even leveled off. It was believed for a while that I had a condition that would eventually leave me completely deaf without surgery. Luckily, that dignosis has since been disproven by two separate doctors. My eardrums, probably because of childhood ear infections, are now somewhat thickened and stretched out, flaccid. Because they are so loose, they do not vibrate with sound as they should. Think of a drum head; if it’s nice and tight, you get a good *bamp* from it. If it is loose, it’s more of a *fwumph*. Every sound I encounter takes on a somewhat fwumphish quiality.

That should all change tomorrow. At 10:00, I have an appointment to go and pick up my hearing aids. I am surprised at the level of anxiety that I feel about it. I simply can’t sleep (thus the 1:30 a.m. blog entry). I kind of know what it’ll sound like, as my audiologist leaves the headphones on me with the appropriate amplification when we talk sometimes, but still. This isn’t just going to be in his office. They’ll go with me everywhere. I am so used to going ahead and shutting down to the cacophony whenever I go anywhere. It is going to be a strange, strange thing to re-engage.

My daughter is thrilled. I often think that she is the one who suffers the most from my hearing loss. When I showed her a picture of my aids on the computer, she literally jumped up and down a few times, clapping her hands. These have been years in the coming. I had been told by two different audiologists in two different states that the aids I needed would run $5-6k, which we simply could not afford. Oddly, though, at the second one, the one here in Washington, as she handed me the paperwork with my “quote” on it, she whispered “Do your research.” I did, and I found an amazing audiologist who literally works with ALL hearing aid makers, not just one brand (and is therefore, not so tied to sales promotions and incentives from a particular brand, as an office that only sells one might tends to be).

He has me happily set with a pair with all the functionality that I need for just $3k. Yup, I saved a thousand dollars an ear. I was in the office just a week ago, and we redid my hearing test, took molds of my ears, etc. Now, tomorrow is the day of truth. I have so much hope pinned to this. You see, I remember what things used to sound like. I remember what people used to sound like. I was fifteen when we first began to notice that I favored my right ear. It wasn’t until my early 20′s that the loss was bad enough to interfere. It’s all different now, like I walk around with invisible pillows over my ears. I am so afraid that I’ll pop those babies in and and the pillows will still be there. I am so hopeful that I pop ‘em in, and the pillows go *poof*. To be honest with myself, it’ll probably be something in between, and I’ll have to settle for that.

Whatever the outcome tomorrow, right now I just can’t sleep. I am so tired. I lie down, and my mind just starts reeling. All week, as I’ve gone about things, I’ve been integrating the idea of having my hearing aids. Tomorrow it should become real. Will the world snap back in to focus?

Update: It looks like it will actually be tuesday morning. The audiologist’s office just called, and they are still waiting to receive back the ear pieces, which are due to arrive today.

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Yet another domestic adventure began last night, when Rob and I were chatting up in the treehouse (our bedroom). Just as I sat down at the top of the stairs, my eyes lighted on a fairly large (6+ in. diameter) “blister” in the paint on the ceiling of the stairwell. I reach up, and sure enough, there’s moisture just beginning to seep through–not water in the liquid sense, but definite moisture. The paint is fairly well falling off the ceiling, and so, being the curious little house-geek that I am, I immediately run to my drafting table and grab my exacto knife. A couple of swipes and my fears are confirmed. Underneath the paint, the ceiling is wet. There’s water getting through the roof.

The really scary part is that, with the paint peeled away, I can see stains left behind from previous occurances. A quick scan of the ceiling reveals the here-to-fore unnoticed repair attempts by the previous owners. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present our recurring roof leak! Oh no. I can feel the panic begin to rise, my throat tighten. I begin scurrying around, worrying aloud that if the damage is extensive, I can kiss my trip to LA good-bye. As my worry crests, I begin explaining to Rob the costs involved in replacing a roof. This entire time, I am being met with a cross of skepticism and fascination from my husband. He’s never been one for home improvement, and so the idea that “uh, there’s WATER coming through the ROOF,” just isn’t registering. Despite my husband’s naive, bemused detatchement I immediately call the roofer, who happens to answer his phone at 11:00 at night. He says he’ll be out in the morning.

True to his word, Rod the roofer was here by 8:30 or so, and after about 45 minutes of pulling up and puting back various shingles here and there, he comes back down into the house with one bent, rusty roofing nail. Funny because, well, the latest layer of our roof was put on with staples. Suffice it to say that the renegade nail had wiggled its way down through and damaged each layer of the roof until water could get all the way through. The irony. With the offending nail removed, and the damaged shingles replaced, all that remains is to repair the damage from the inside.

Like any house approaching a century in age, ours has it’s little quirks. One of them being that the slope of this staircase is considerably steeper than that of the ceiling above it. At the point where the water damage is, I can ever-so-just-barely reach the ceiling, and even then, only by performing all sorts of daring contotionist balancing acts involving the handrail, the stairs, and suspending myself by pushing against the walls. So, there I am, clinging like Spiderman to anything I can get a limb on, pulling away paint like banana peel. I did finally hit some stubborn stuff, and so I grabbed a chisel from my woodcarving tools and set to with that. I finally got the paint off the entire wet spot so that it can dry. I am a little worried that the paint wants to continue peeling on down the wall, even past the current damage. My guess is that at some point in the past, enough water got through and spread behind the paint on down that wall, warping it and separating the paint off. I’m planning to scrape and/or pull it all off, make sure everything is DRY (which can take a couple months in our climate), and seal it all up with some good, eco-friendly paint.

For all that something like this is usually regarded as a hassle, I’m having a lot of fun with it.

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Behind the eight ball,
ready to fold,
my courage has wavered.
This is getting so old.

To work and to give,
meet everyone’s needs.
How ’bout if someone
would take care of me?

All my life I have done this.
It’s all I have known.
To nurture and serve them
as they have all grown.

Something still rankles
Deep down inside
I want to know who I’d be
if I tried.

What would I do?
What to create?
I’d do something good.
No, I’d build something great.

I’d spin it in words
and show it in paint–
the truth of all truths.
Yeah, I’d be a saint!

Megalomania,
it’s an odd little defense,
when you feel insignificant
or stuck on the fence.

Do I do what I’m doing?
What I always have done?
Or do I do something new now?
Something I would find fun.

Something More has been noisy.
Wanderlust’s joining in.
Their chorus is rising.
I’m afraid that they’ll win.

Off I would wander.
Away I would go.
Just like my mother
did long ago.

I look in their eyes, though
and there’s just no way.
I love them too much,
You know I will stay.

Still an escape,
just a brief one, of course
would serve me so well
get me back to the source

of the love that I give them
and all those before.
I just need a break
to strengthen my core.

I gave to my brothers,
my dad and my friends.
Two different husbands,
it never ends.

One child by one,
and one by another
sweet sissy Kate
and Bobbie, her brother.

My days are so full
of their needs and their wants–
diapers to change
and fun treasure hunts.

Why are my thoughts
only coming in rhyme?
I’ve so much to say.
Can I keep it in time?

With this boring cadence
that pounds on me now,
I seek to express
what I don’t know how.

My feelings are bruised here.
The hurt’s running deep.
Nothing revives me,
not caffeine or sleep.

My husband’s so sweet,
gets me chocolates and treats,
massages my back,
and rubs on my feets.

I am so lucky.
I assure you, I know
that life could be harder,
but I’m aching to grow–

not just as a mother,
not just as a wife.
I’m aching to grow
in my self and my life.

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If my day were a book
written by Dr Seuss,
this blog would be the end
would be the caboose.

At the end of the day,
I write all my words.
I spell them all out–
what I’ve seen and I’ve heard.

The things I have done,
The things I have seen,
some have been fun
and some left me green.

I could not begin
to write it all out.
For most is too private,
though I want to shout.

I want to shout to the heavens
What a day this has been!
Gone all sixes and sevens
Is it punishment for sin?

My life of sweet peace
is yet again
fractured by those
I would like to let in.

My heart is a chest
I may never unlock
despite all the best
efforts of my flock.

I am the one crow
who wants oh so much
to fly with the murder
and not need a crutch.

Yet I can-not
seem to find
the way to convey
what’s left me behind.

I have strong feelings.
So much has been said.
One day my reelings
may yet leave me dead.

One would think I would learn
to keep to my own
to tend to my nest
and keep my sweet home.

That damn Something More
he moans and he wails
drags me on out,
the wind in my sails.

Never does he tell me
which way I should go,
and so I am lonely,
left in the snow

of a bank in my heart,
a void in my chest,
where feelings should start
and build and not rest.

A love they should grow there.
Won’t you show me the way?
To let it take root there,
this very day?

This day has been up.
This day has been down.
Not one in between
could ever be found.

So much good news
and so much regret
I’ll paint it in hues–
My best painting yet!!

If only I could
admit to it all
I’d tell you a story
Your friends you would call:

“Come listen to Naiah
as she tells her tale!
She ain’t a liar;
Things did not go well.”

“She tempted Fate,
and Fate laughed her out.
She’s in a state.
Look at her pout!”

That’s what you would say,
could I spin the tale
of my day that’s so strange-
full of good and of ill.

Some secrets are mine,
even those I can’t share.
Others I hide,
Those I don’t dare.

My throat is so tight now
with the words I would say.
I just want to sleep now
and take it away.

but sleep will not come here,
not in this space.
In my head, it’s a mess here
Someone clean up this place!

That’s my job, I guess.
I should have known.
The messes are mine,
some borrowed, some owned.

I wish I could wash
my hands of it all–
close my heart and my mind,
and not heed the call

of my spirit so trapped,
aching to soar,
wanting to reach,
needing to roar.

I know I will heal.
The dust, it will settle
My mind will be clear,
like steam from the kettle.

I’m under such pressure
as steam, you can see.
Enjoy your leisure,
for you need not be me.

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It’s going to be a sweet mamma-zoom of a day. The skies are crystal clear, the sun is BRIGHT, and my babies are home all day. (No school on fridays for Kate.) We’re planning to spend the day in the yard, and Kate informed me last night as she was falling asleep that she wants to do lots of chores. I love days like this, all nesty and cozy, spending time working together. There’s just something about working around the house together that just gets everyone in this ‘we’re on the same team’ mindset, not to mention our yard is like a faeries’ theme park.

Last night we all worked on putting in a blueberry bush. I dug the hole, Katy gathered fallen pine needles, etc (acidifier for soil), and Rob moved heavy stuff & kept Bobbie from interfering too much (a very important job). We planted it just off to the side of where we sit in the mediation garden. Imagine sitting and resting, leisurely reaching off to the side and picking a blueberry, savoring it’s sweet taste and unique texture. That space is really coming together. The kids and I will be adding another plant back there today, a heliotrope. Dark foliage, bunches of tiny vivdly violet flowers, and it smells intoxicatingly sweet, like vanilla somehow.

Oooh, the kids are stirring–time to go have breakfast and fun!

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I have to partition my own mind so absolutely. I spend most of my day with the vast majority of my focus on my children’s needs. I have the conversationis with them that they need to have, and help them complete the actions that they need to complete. Given that they never really ‘de-activate,’ it’s all very time consuming. For all it’s breadth. though, it is extremely shalllow. This can be hard for me when I have some tenacious ‘deep thoughts’ that won’t just stay in their partition, and wait their turn. In some respect, you can’t constrain true creativity, but man it’d be nice if I could. Ideas and thoughts that beg to be written out occur to me all day. I have to keep them on the back burner, and all to often I forget them. Somtimes, I play them over and over in my head, adding a sentence each time, and end up memorizing them like I would a quotation or a speech. By the time I get to write them, they feel so distant that for all that I have the words, I’ve lost the train of thought that the words were meant to preserve.

I got myself a voice recorder, so that even when I can’t be at a keyboard or have a pencil in my hand, I can see things through, but I tend to really dislike the sound my voice recorded, and so I’ve held off on that score. Maybe I should add cell phone audioblog entries. I could just call myself and talk it out. For all that I find that disturbing on a level or two, it could be kinda cool.

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WARNING: Incredibly lame dream recap to follow. I am almost ashamed that my first recallable dream in ages is so utterly uncreative. One would think my subconscious would have more to say than that.

For the first time in months, I woke up actually able to remember my dream from last night. As I said when I was summing it up to my husband this morning, it involved me, my sister-in-law Kate, Hayden Christensen, and William Shatner. Yeah, needless to say, I’ve got some serious confusion going on right now. In the dream, Kate is staying with us for some reason, only I seem to live in some kind of apartment/condo that’s attached to a building with all sorts of public stuff (library, shops, theater, etc). For some unknown reason Hayden C is around, and Kate is hitting on him, which is upsetting me because I have it in my head that he’s supposed to be with me. At some point I’m in the library with Kate, and I kick her ass! I’m not kidding! I attacked my sister-in-law (who, in real life, I actually like a great deal!!). I grab her by the back of the neck with my thumb and index finger, somhow kick her legs out from under her, and push her to the ground by her neck. How weird is that???? Oh, and on the way to or from the library, we (Kate and I) run into William Shatner in a hallway, who apparently knows me. He calls me by name, and shakes my hand and says he’s in a hurry and has to keep going. Of course, I’m thinking “Why does William Shatner think he knows me???” I finally get back to Hayden, wherever he was (dreams are so weird) and tell him that I was sorry Kate was hitting on him and (actual dream quote here) that I “dropped her ass” in the library. He busts out laughing, and the dream devolves to nonsensical flowing images that I can’t really quite grasp enough to mention–brief glimpses of gardens (lots of rhododendrons…), a stone path with some pillars or archways, blue sky…Strange stuff.

I am no dream interpreter, so, I haven’t a clue what it means, but it was weird. I even remember being vaguely aware of how weird it was as it was unfoldding. I can maybe tie Hayden’s presence to the upcoming Star Wars movie release. We’ve had friction here at home about that on a couple levels. One, Katy wants to go see it. She’s only 6, and she has the unfortunate tendency of freaking out in movie theaters when the plot involves even any tenstion–let alone violence. She has read the entire Episode III comic book, and is convinced she wants to go. I’m still really uncertain, and one dad says yes, and the other says no. There’s also a level of friction in that Rob’s org at Microsoft has bought out the entire theater on opening day for them to get to see it. No guests. Grrrr. I had just been telling myself that with the kids, etc, I might not be able to see it the day it opens, but that I’d just wait and see it when I can, when he called to tell me ‘the good news’. So, that might explain that aspect.

As for William Shatner, I don’t know, maybe a tie through Wil Wheaton’s books? Rob was just rereading Dancing Barefoot the other day. That’s all I got on that score; I try to keep my life as Shatner-free as possible. Oh, I did think about him briefly the other day when I noticed, well, nevermind. It’s not very seemly.

As for Kate hitting on a guy that I though should have been with me, and then physically hurting her over it. Um, I know I am, on some level jealous of her single, San Fransisco, art school life, but I’d certainly never hurt her over it. And why in a library?

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Catsing around, looking for something, just what I do not know. Life is full and rich, and yet somehow the voice of Something More will not be quiet. As the chaos closes in, and I feel my grasping for the futile effort that it is, I look within and I cannot deny that it is good. It’s as if I’ve sidestepped yet another attack of the self-doubt, the uselessness, the Black Dog. I did, and it is strange. When you’re used to getting knocked over, and it starts to pass you by, you can miss that familiar thud–even find its lack disconcerting. It’s a grounding experience, for the little reality it involves.

Here I am, I felt it coming, and I saw it for what it was and grew tense with anticipation. Now, though, it is dissipating. It missed me, plain and simple. I suppose I should be proud of myself. I was such a wreck for so long–all my life really. The smallest ripple on the pond of my heart, and I was an instant tempest. I suppose I’ve just gotten tired of it all. Letting my emotions sweep me away like that is simultaneously easier and harder. It is so easy to just let go, but the ensuing feelings and actions would leave me devoid of energy or strength. So, as tedious as it can be to hang on when that emotional tide rises, in the end, it is easier. To just let go is simpler, but more taxing, while hanging on is somewhat more complex and considerably more stable.

It’s that time of month when I just suck deep inside my own head, and I want to ride my thoughts, read, & write. If I were a priestess on some ancient mountaintop, I’d be all about the moondark seculsion. Recognizing that, tomorrow is one of my mamma’s-day-off days. I wish I had my iBook; I could go somewhere and write. (Like most people these days, I type considerably faster than I write.) Alas, my iBook is off in LA (or on a plane in transit). Hopefully, I’ll get my data back. If not, we flatten and rebuild, and I take it as motivation to start with fresh ideas. In the stress and strain of the last couple days, I was really afraid to think like that. It’s as if the anxiety of losing what I had already done kept me blind to what I could yet do.

The background strain of seemingly-impending downness & the overt strain of watching Andrei’s frustration with my crippled little box really had me pretty strung out. (Not to mention that I’ve been randomly staying up all night, as it’s my only chance for quiet.) I got some heavy sleep last night, and several of the stressors have cleared. So, I can see again. It’ll be alright. It’ll be nice to have everything on there, but, if not, I’ll take it as the kick in the hiney from the universe that it is.

As for that sense of casting around, it’s just validation. Next to words, validation is one of the most dangerous drugs available to us, and blogs are an incredibly easy source of it. I have people I know who live just enough to have something to blog about, and it’s never about the good time that they had, it’s about how many comments their summation of the good time will get them in their next entry. I suppose to some much lesser degree, I’m hooked on that one as well. I’ve ‘moved’ over here, and I don’t even know if anyone’s reading it. Does anybody hop the links from my livejournal? Hmm, I suppose I could check my logs. I almost don’t want to, for fear of finding out I am talking to the wind. Well, one good thing about the wind, his ear never tires. Oh, and he rarely cuts you off, though he may steal your words away…

Comments? Buehler? Anyone…anyone…anyone. I *so* feel like that guy sometimes. You know he’s gotta think he’s interesting, and he goes home to his wife “I just don’t get it, the kids just aren’t interested.” Heh, have I mentioned that I think I’m funny, too? It’s all in our inividual perceptions. My husband usually rolls his eyes when I think I’m being a stitch, but, then again, I can get my 11-year-old babysitter laughing so hard she can’t breathe.

My mental meander seems to have come to an end, and so I hit Publish as the wind plays across my face and toussles my hair…

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