Hospital Shoppers

I was sitting at a coffee shop recently, and a kind older gentleman looked me directly in the eye and said, “I expected to see more shoppers.” Like many moments in my life, I didn’t really understand, but I rolled with it to see what magic might unpack from this strange start to a conversation. He explained that the hospital was close, and he expected more shoppers. As he persisted in his seemingly-strange understanding of the world, I started to creatively justify why shoppers would be near a hospital. I remained open to the concept. A few sentences later, I realized he was talking about helicopters: “choppers.”

In high school, I got to go to a Dave Matthews concert. He played “Crash Into Me” and said “hike up your skirt you little boy.”

It felt weird that he sang it.
It felt weirder that everyone loved hearing him sing it.
Later, I realized he was saying “hike up your skirt a little more.” Admittedly, this brought a bit of relief.

I like to say that I hear things creatively, but in reality, I often don’t hear what’s actually being said.

I do have hearing loss—thanks mostly to playing in jazz bands without hearing protection. My hearing loss isn’t enough to process words as incorrectly as I do. I can, in fact, hear the necessary frequencies to dissect mouth hole sounds in an appropriate way, but my brain doesn’t (yet) do it.

I’m very aware of frequencies I CAN hear and those I CANNOT hear quite as well. I do ear training and practice listening to frequencies in songs/mixes, and audio I have to fix for video production. I have a decent understanding of frequencies that are too loud or missing from musical sounds. Again, I know I have hearing loss, but there’s a missing component to processing what’s coming in when it relates to speech and words. I have always heard lyrics “creatively.”

Some friends of mine can listen to a song and immediately recite every lyric the next time they hear the song. I feel like there’s a genius there I have no chance of having access to.

When I hear a song, I hear and understand the melody and the chords associated with it. I can, in most cases, play a song back after I’ve heard it. Of course, there are some complex musical pieces I need more time to dive deeper into, but for the most part, I hear music in numbers and understand them when I hear them.

Back to lyrics.

If I try VERY hard, I can often understand most of the lyrics in a song as well as I understand a conversation—not very well.

In my world of misheard words, lyricists write some weird crap; it’s funny to me (especially knowing they didn’t actually say what I heard). When I read lyrics while listening to a song, it’s still often weird: but not the same weird I heard.

Furthermore, I struggle immensely with “loud,” unexpected sounds. They’re not always loud, but my brain translates them as loud. It could be a click of a pen, a persistent squeak in a car, or an unrelenting bird that wants its presence to be known.

As a kid, surprising auditory moments scared the hell out of me, and persistent un-asked for sounds made me feel trapped. As an adult, surprising auditory moments trigger the same construct in my brain that makes me want to run, hide, or protect myself. Depending on how activated I am already, I might be able to cognitively suppress the tendency to be afraid (realizing the sound is not a threat). At high activation levels, suppressing the fear or anger is extremely difficult and not always successful.

Back to music.

Growing up, I played piano—all. the. time.

In the last few weeks, I’m realizing how positively stimulating it was and still is for my brain. When I’m playing an instrument, I have control of the emotion. I have control of the noise. I have control. It calms me.

Back to words.

I recently saw a Ted Talk called “Escaping the Hidden Prison of Auditory Processing Disorder.” Moments in the talk exposed the audience to multiple examples of words being said with background noise. I missed, technically speaking, a shiz-ton of them.

The speaker was Angela Loucks Alexander. Her team created an online program to help people improve their processing of speech. I started her program a few days ago.

Part of the initiation involved an iPad app designed for assessing children’s abilities to process speech and sounds. The owl, characterized as a military general, rooted me on for the wins, and kindly said “almost” when I missed something.

Sometimes, I’d get the correct answer, and he’d say, “Ah… shit.” I later realized he was saying “awesome.” I kind of like the first thing he said.

I almost cried at moments as a cartoon owl said “almost” and “so close” time after time. I felt mocked. I felt prideful and embarrassed. I’m good at hearing (I think). I’m obviously not good at processing the speech side.

I didn’t identify the words correctly.
I’m here to grow.
I don’t expect or need perfection.
I want improvement in all aspects of my life.

That’s where I am: focused on improvement. If this process doesn’t help me with auditory sensitivity, it might, at the very least, help me realize why shoppers aren’t common because of a nearby hospital and why Dave Matthews isn’t singing about something weirder than he meant.