During the last few weeks, I’ve noticed an increase in a certain ringing in my ears. The ringing is called tinnitus and I’ve had a low-level version of it since wandering into the wooly acreage of perimenopause a few years ago, though “ringing” isn’t really the right word for what I’m actually hearing. It’s more of a high-pitched hiss that, it turns out (thanks, Google!) measures approximately 8kHz or 8,000 Hertz in tone. Don’t worry, I have an audiology appointment scheduled to see if there’s something going on that needs addressing, but now that I’ve had a little time to explore the finer points of this condition and ample opportunities to bring it up in conversation, I’m discovering there are quite a few people I know who have been experiencing this for years.
I mention the tinnitus because the hissing in my ear is distracting. I can’t quite sit in the silence to which I’ve become so accustomed—a silence that has been the bedrock and backdrop of so much of my creative output—and with this volume in my auditory field I find myself redirecting my attention to things that don’t require me to sit in the pristine stillness of my thoughts.
Tinnitus or no, I’m recognizing this redirect is not idiopathic but rather something cyclical, often following a period of deep, quiet, contemplative, creative concentration. It’s as if my mind—or at least the cogitative part of me—that’s been working more intently and intensely—is, like, “Can we please go to the Bahamas now?”
But Bahamas for the body isn’t the same as Bahamas for the brain.
As a writer, I tend to believe that even not writing is a kind of writing. The synapses that link me to the worlds of language and metaphor and imagery and story and meaning are still firing, but instead of pointing me to the page, they’re pointing me toward presence.
For me, the turn toward tangible, physical experience is a sign that my introspective season is moving into the next iteration of the cycle. The part where I don’t disappear into my thoughts or hide out in my lines. It’s a time when the other mechanisms of my beingness, perhaps held back at the edge for the poems to take the lead, get to come out to explore and engage and play. A time when I’m not wondering how to tune into the Muse and instead find myself jiggling the dial to find a different station entirely.
There’s a surprising relief when this cycle reaches this place, because it’s where I discover the ways in which I’m reminded of what else is on the menu of my life. It’s a time that invites me to access the other skills and interests I have, and makes more visible opportunities that I may have waved away while I was focused on writing projects. My Bahama brain is still active and activated, gravitating toward a palette of inspirations, but it’s not limited by the compulsion to contort those inspirations into the form of a written piece. Instead, I find myself in a kind of improvisational dance with the day, dipping and swaying to the music of the here and now.
So I’m revisioning my tinnitus as a voice saying “Don’t stay inside all day—it’s beautiful out!” (even though just last week, a snowstorm came and dumped 4 inches and a power outage). And I’m letting dip and sway as the rhythms dictate. I’m finding myself making more invitations, having more extended conversations, absorbing the color and flavor and texture of my time with others.
The other night, I tried to find a station on Apple Music that would help cover the whine in my ears, and at first, I chose one that played meditational sounds. I listened for awhile, but then realized that I was too tuned in, overly of the layering and pacing of the tones. It was like the sounds were making a poem but my ears didn’t want to hear it. So I switched that off and found another station, one that only played the sounds of falling rain, and I fell deeply asleep (and stayed that way) for the whole night. I could have been in the Amazon rainforest or New England or the Pyrenees—it didn’t matter. I wasn’t trying to make sense of what I was taking in.
Instead, my Bahama brain leaned back into its beach chair and closed its eyes and found the scent of coconuts in the air, and felt the breeze come through, and discovered the sweet rhythm of just being.
This week’s “10-line Tuesday” poem arrived out of that ether. Perhaps it’s not all that different from where other poems arrive, but honestly, it practically wrote itself, and the relief I felt—in my ears, in my heart—was palpable.
Thank you Maya.
Is there somewhere that you explain or write about the numbered essays? I'd like to know more about this approach. Thanks!