Now Hear This Part Two

My brother and I used to visit my grandparents’ house every summer for weeks on end.  We would play, laugh, shout, swim, and run around outside.  There was even a time when we took Tarzan toys from McDonalds and played behind the bushes, squeezed between plant and house, pretending we were in a jungle.  We built so many memories with our grandparents and looked forward to every vacation we were able to spend with them.

One summer, my brother and I asked my grandfather why he had to wear hearing aids.  I don’t know if it was the first summer he got them, or if, as children, it was just the first summer that we noticed them.  We were on the stairs going down to the basement to play and he answered in his harsh, but teasing voice: “Because you two kids are too loud!”  My grandma scolded him for that.  She knew that we were too young to understand that he was kidding.  I know I believed him.  It was years before I realized the actual cause of his hearing loss was the fact that he had worked in the factory at Simplicity Mowers for over 30 years, putting things together in an environment that was constantly loud.  No amount of hearing protection could save his ears from 30 years of constant noise.

I finally told him, a year or two ago, that I had believed his joke for all those years.  We laughed about it and I hoped he didn’t feel bad.  Sometimes, behind his rough and tough exterior, I think he is one of the most thoughtful men I know.  He writes anniversary cards to my grandmother, even after fifty-one years of marriage.  Especially after 51 years of marriage.  When she is sick or has some sort of accident, he gets kind of quiet.  He’s attentive.

His eyes watered at the hospital during an emergency last year.  I have never seen him cry and don’t think he ever has.  But his eyes watered one day, and I knew that meant a great deal.  I feel bad when everyone is talking at once and he leans in, one ear forward, eyes squinted, trying to understand what is being said, trying to hear the person who is actually talking to him.  Then, we all stop and wait for one person to speak so the words don’t run together.

He has funny ears, and honestly, my ears resemble his.  They stick out funny on each side and are kind of large.  My four-year-old sister has these same ears as well.  When I put her hair up, I have to laugh, because one ear sticks out at a slightly different angle than the other.  Just like Grandpa.  I love it.

Like I mentioned earlier, I asked my brother what he thought of ears.  Well, Franklin didn’t give me the profound musician’s response that I thought he would give.  I thought, since he loved listening to music, playing and performing music, that he would connect that to the audience that he so enjoys.  Or at least to himself.  After all, he has come just shy of dedicating his life to music.  But no.  Instead, he tells me that he thinks of earwax and soft fuzzy ears.  Okay.  Fine.  He also mentioned extendable ears, which is a Harry Potter thing.  Thank you, Franklin.

I didn’t realize that I was going to write so much about ears.  I honestly didn’t think they were that interesting.  In reality, it’s not the ears that are so fascinating to me, as much as it’s the people dealing with their own issues with ears and hearing.  I have always had a soft spot in my heart for my grandfather and it has recently blossomed fully.  Maybe it’s the connections that I have with the people with their ears…

The room is quiet right now, my roommate off to class.  I hear people walking upstairs.  They are always walking.  Always stomping.  I can hear them, and it drives me crazy.  But then again, I can hear them.

Digits

I bend down and tie my shoes, a rare thing.  I usually just shove the shoe right on without even untying it.  I use my left index finger as a shoehorn while the right hand pulls up the tongue.  Then, I jam my foot inside.  It only hurts sometimes.  Next shoe.  Switch hands.  Then, I throw on my coat and zip it up.  I head out of the room, open the door and venture out.  The day begins.

The day first started with me smacking the snooze button on my alarm clock.  Sometimes it’s just out of reach of my short little fingers and I have to swing at it again before it wakes up anyone else.  My hands only hurt temporarily when I miss and hit the wire rack below.

The night before, I spent hours typing assignments and chatting online, my fingers working away much like they are now.  I don’t know how they do it or why.  My brain tells them to do it and they only get a few things wrong.  Even as I sit here typing this, I marvel at the speed at which my brain tells each individual finger to find its own individual letter and push down the key.  Wow.  How strange.  I think I just typed that in thirty seconds.  Now that’s fast.  Fingers are fascinating things.

I opened up these thoughts to one of my cousins, asking her what she thought about fingers.  She immediately thought about life without them and the things she wouldn’t be able to do.  Play piano, draw, write, use the computer.  A devoted pianist, computer freak and locksmith of sorts, she needs her hands.  Obviously.

She contemplated how weird fingers looked.  Hers are short and stubby, with short fingernails so she can better play her music.  “But man, I’d take music over nails any day,” she writes.

Fingers, simple little tools that perform so many things, and really aren’t that simple at all.  There are three bones called phalanges: distal, middle, and proximal.  The thumb doesn’t have a middle phalanx.  There are joints, fat deposits, flexion points, tendons, and blood vessels.  All these things allow for the different movements.  Bend.  Straighten.  Side-to-side.

I watch my hands as I type this paragraph.  They bounce back and forth as I delete and fix my mistakes.  Sometimes the fingers get it wrong.  But that’s OK.  They work hard.  Index bounces to the Y.  Middle finger bounces to the delete.  I never did listen in keyboarding class.  I always moved my entire hand to hit delete.  Numbers too.  I could never match up the correct finger to the number it was supposed to hit.  I kind of hate that.  It takes much longer to hit the key and reposition when you move your entire hand.  Oh well.  Now I use my fingers to navigate the arrow using my computer’s track pad.  Hover the arrow over post.  One click and it will be done.  Marvelous.

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