Occasionally it sounds like
a cathedral tower full of bells
but usually it’s more like the last
scatter of cicadas at the end of summer,
an almost pleasant buzz and whirr,
though with a slightly higher pitch,
as at night once the light has gone
and daytime noise has faded.
Crescendos rise then fall
in soft waves and reverberate
like the keening voices
in Ligeti’s Lux Aeterna
lift and drop, pierce
and penetrate, throb
and smooth and finally
come to rest.
Vinegar and Good Wood
Nancy Scott December 20, 2024
14 thoughts on “Tinnitus”
I remember how I used to love silence. I worked on a very remote sheep station (farm) for a year when I was younger, and I could lay awake at night and not hear anything. It was wonderful. I’m now very deaf in my right ear except for the constant ringing. If my neighbours are noisy with loud music at least I can block it out a bit by sleeping on my left side.
Your description is relatable, but my ears were screeching as I read it. I checked in and focused just on the deafening and ear piercing sound and thought how might it be not to hear this. Early on, I fought it with my frustration and being mad it was out of my control. Eventually, I had to capitulate, because even the audiologist said there’s nothing to be done. Laying down to sleep, it seems like the volume is amplified until the whole room is blasting with the E string on the violin on the highest volume level. How is it that no one around me hears this? How exhausted I am trying to climb over the screech to find sleep on the other side. Are you sure you can’t hear it? If I could give away half the sound, maybe I could manage better. But, I don’t imagine that will work.
I relate to what you’re saying. My tinnitus started about 20 years ago (thank you, all those loud rock concerts I went to without hearing protection) and for the first few years, I would have feelings close to what I imagine a panic attack would feel like at the thought that I couldn’t ever escape the high pitched screeching. At some point my mind seems to have figured out some way for me to live with it. But boy would I love to have even a day respite. Oh well. My dad had pulsatile tinnitus plus very hard of hearing. He described his tinnitus as like timpani drums. All I can say is – UGH – and my sympathies to you.
I’m sorry to hear your experience is sometimes unpleasant. I do sympathize. Mine is generally tolerable. I wrote the poem partly to find some value in it.
Thank you for sharing this. When my tinnitus rises to the surface I remind myself that it is always with me, I just don’t always pay attention on the quieter days. I am a Christian, and am comforted by the analogy that God’s spirit is always with me as well. I just don’t always pay attention!
The comparison to cicadas is apt. I’m not bothered by my tinnitus either, and your poem has given me a lovely picture to think of when it does bother me.
Thank you. I’m glad it speaks to you.
Thank you! I don’t mind the cricket or peeper sounds, but the occasional high pitched steady screech that competes with conversation, entertainment, even storms and renders quiet reading and meditation futile. Better to turn on a competing device to distract, or trade in that journal or email list for a gripping page turner till it lessens.
I can sympathize. I think I’m very lucky my case is so mild. And indeed there are distractions that can lessen the impact.
Your images are stunning. You turn a medical issue into poetry—into music that transcends pain.
How marvelous, to read the sound that is the Muzak in the background of my life described in poetry. Mine, to me, sounds no different than the chirring of insects through a narrowly opened window on a summer night. It should drive me crazy, like other constant background noises do. I think the difference is that the sounds are my own, they belong to me, an accompaniment that accompanies.
Thank you for the kind words and your excellent insight.
Mine is now usually mild and not disturbing but it occasionally goes into screeching sounds and there’s no music anymore.
I have the same type of mild tinnitus and have described as the sound of a warm summer night with the sound of crickets. I don’t find it disturbing.