This year, in order to celebrate my seven year remission mark, I underwent a surgery removing a good portion of my right eye. The first few days were somewhat excruciating and the muscles in my face were so compromised I could not speak, eat or see for the first week of my recovery. Deprived of my two favorite ways of processing the world: vision and incessant talking, I was given the opportunity to reflect upon both my limitations and potential for understanding the people, places and events swirling about me.
I am a big fan of metaphors, similes, parables, and allegories of every variety. They make sense to me. "Vision" and "voice" are two of the most predominantly used metaphors in all of literature, religion, and politics. The changes in my vision throughout the years have offered me the beautiful opportunity to live a metaphor in vibrant and living color. The lessons, insights and changes in both literal and figurative perspective have provided me with an invaluable personal curriculum that has slowly been teaching me about my blind spots. It has likewise provided me with moments that have demanded I turn my head or change my vantage point in order to see. This last surgery proved to be especially poignant however, as it not only temporarily blinded me, but silenced me.
I have a whole smorgasbord of fears. I am a perpetual worrier about most things absurd, but among my deepest fears, I have always been afraid of being silenced. I have always been loud. Even when I refrain from speaking, I tend to be heard. As a child, my family frequently worried about my hearing because I spoke at such a loud volume. To make matters worse, once my boobs came in, any semblance of an introvert disappeared and I became loud in every respect. In my mind silence and quiet were not frequently associated with positive attributes or experiences.
As far as metaphors go, being silenced denotes a loss of power or footing, so I was initially unsettled when I was rendered virtually speechless the first few days following my surgery. I would hear my mother teasingly greet visitors at our door by telling them that this was their only chance to say whatever they would like without having to hear what I thought about it!
And so I listened. Because I had to. I listened a lot, sometimes to the mundane and sometimes to the profound. One of my dearest friends even went as far as to describe to me her Facebook feed as I could not see mine. I was amazed at how frequently I felt inclined to comment on what she told me about people I barely knew. I would even at times find myself attempting to move my terribly painful face to respond, because after all didn't she need to know how heinous I thought the engagement ring of some nameless, faceless person on her newsfeed sounded? It wasn't as though I knew the girl, could see the ring, or understood the significance of the object, but wasn't it my duty as the ever loud Lindsay to express my opinion about it?
I remember as a little girl visiting some sort of educational museum featuring an interactive exhibit about blindness. As you progressed through the exhibit you walked through a pitch black concourse where the sounds and commotion of everyday life played as you walked through. The sensory overload was unbearable and I couldn't believe how traumatic the cacophony of everyday life could be when you couldn't see it. The phenomena of one sense being heightened when another is lost or quieted is frequently cited in both metaphors and medical journals…Any yogi can tell you that at some point in order to get where you want to go, you'll have to close your eyes. But no museum exhibit, yoga class, or great piece of artwork can really explain the experience in full. You don't realize how real the phenomena is until you live it. The fragrance, noise and texture are so acutely experienced you wonder how you ever knew what anything actually looked like. Since regaining my vision I have had to change all the scents in my house because everything smelled like not being able to see, I had to change my bedding because the texture of my sheets felt like surgery and I guarantee it will be a long time before I am able to listen to a book on tape…
During my first semester of graduate school we were required to take a multiple learning styles evaluation. I thought this was somewhat a waste of my time as I was and always would be a visual/spatial learner. However after completing the exam I was shocked to discover that my visual/spatial had dropped significantly and how I understood the world was no longer predominately dictated by how it looked to me. I realized I would learn a lot more if I closed my eyes every once in awhile.
Circumstances have required me to close my eyes on several occasions over the past few years, but the five days post surgery of forced listening taught me more about my blind spots than any bout of darkness. Being loud had become such a pervasive backdrop in my life I became slow to listen in meaningful ways. I realized my need for personal volume caused me to be overly critical of others needlessly. More importantly it taught me in my desperate desire for my voice to be heard, I myself could no longer hear it. Over the years I have been willing to ebb and flow with the scene changes but far too hesitant to change the backdrop.
Words never cease to be powerful. Language is a tremendous force. Voice is beautiful and imperative. Vision is a guidepost. For every lovely allegory I have been so privileged to live, and every sense I have lost and regained, I have come to believe listening is the true and transcendent metaphor.
