On losing senses...

[conuly]

Something leora said made me think.

Way back when, in the 8th grade, my health teacher asked us all if we'd prefer to lose our sight or our hearing. I was, I think, the only one to say my hearing. My hearing is, for the most part, an annoyance mihi - too good for its own good. But the idea of losing it scared me so much that I can still feel it, if I think. It took me years to figure out why.

My eyesight, with my glasses, is perfectly good. Without my glasses is another issue, but I'm never without my glasses, so. With my glasses, I have perfectly good eyesight. But what I finally figured out, years later, is that my primary sense in deciding if it's safe to cross the street, or if I'm about to get smacked with a large object, or even where people are in relation to me is my sense of hearing.

I was in California when I finally figured it out. I was trying to cross the street to get to the community pool, and I... couldn't cross. I'd look both ways, see there were no cars, start to cross - and stop, convinced I was about to get hit by a car. And then it would repeat, and repeat, and repeat. I eventually realized that even though I couldn't see cars coming towards me on the road, I could hear them on the freeway - and this was overriding even the evidence of my own eyes. Granted, the road curved in a way I didn't like, but there was enough space on either side of the curve to see oncoming traffic. If there hadn't been the freeway, I'd've been fine.

Once I realized that, everything clicked. This was why gym was such a trial (I mean, aside from the obvious). The teacher would try to get everybody to go outside on the field, they'd all complain that it was cold, and I'd be there going "Right, out, let's go!" because inside there was an echo. The echo of several games of volleyball, or several people practicing basketball. Hard enough to keep track of several objects in the best of circumstances, but with the echo, I had no way of knowing where anything was. It could be targeted towards me right now!

Of course, my sense of hearing isn't my least favorite sense to lose. That'd be my sense of touch, then hearing, then sight, then balance, then smell, then taste. But, of course, mainstream society likes to pretend those other options don't exist. We're all caught up on this whole binary system for everything, aren't we?

Comments

[meryls-corner.livejournal.com]

I'd rather lose hearing than site. I have a lot of trouble making sense of what I hear, but if I read the same think I'm able to understand it right away.