Music, these days.
Listening to music with my brainstem implant. It’s a real challenge. Trying my hardest to keep a frail connection to this part of life.
Physically, I can only access sound from 12 electrodes. That’s rudimentary when compared to natural hearing.
My surgeon, holding an auditory brainstem implant. I have two of these in my head. The electrodes are the dark cloud inside the rectangular mesh.
I turn on a favourite. A song I know by heart. Burned into my memory.
Darkness on the Edge of Town, Bruce Springsteen.
I press ‘play’, hold my breath, close my eyes, sit back, and…
It’s a disappointment. Like sipping the diet version of a favourite drink. The desire is there but it’s a shadow of the real thing.
I can hear The Boss singing; he sounds like him in moments but mostly it’s reminiscent of a karaoke session. Someone trying to impersonate.
I can hear Max Weinberg smash the drums and I hold onto that. It’s a constant.
As for the rest, I know there’s piano, guitar, bass, tambourine, even a glockenspiel! But it’s all gone. There’s no tune. It’s now some collective murmuring in the background, distorting the vocals and drums.
I can’t turn the volume up any louder than an acceptable talking-level volume. This adds to the frustration. I can’t blare it, even in this mangled state, I’d like to.
I try to stay with the lyrics, reciting them even though they don’t really match what I’m hearing. I persevere.
The song ends and I’m knackered.
It’s not a pleasant, relaxing experience anymore. It’s a workout.
I try to focus on all that my implant gives me, because it does. It really is a beacon of light.
But music is a loss. It’s always going to be. Loss of my past, loss of what’s come since and the loss of all future music yet to be created.
I drew this as I listened to a favourite song. It represents the feeling of ‘so close, yet so far’. (Colourful blobs swirl around a white void. Inside is a person. Out of reach. Alone).
I keep trying to keep the music linked to memory, but it’s not easy. Songs distort in my mind and instruments muddle into a different form.
I write this as people often think of sensory loss in binary terms. It’s not that music is ‘silent’ when I play it. It’s just a hot mess!
The nuance of the loss is key to the layers of the grief.
