First … a tid-bit from yesterday (so to speak):

I couldn’t hear much, especially in the right ear.  The doctor found a ball of ear wax almost a centimetre in diameter deep inside.  Ten minutes of rinsing and reaching in with tweezers and voilà … out it came!  And I can hear.  She said it might have been in there for a year or more.  Who knew?  Not me.

***

And secondly, I reached a goal last night that has been fresh in my mind for three months or so: I sang Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” at an open mic session at Salvatore’s.

The pesky little voice inside my head had said there was no way I could memorize a six-minute song.  It was wrong.  I sang well.  I sang with passion.  I sang softly … and then loudly … then softly.  I felt the words.  I felt the audience.  And many of them felt me.  And so I am happy.

***

As I sat in Izy Coffee yesterday, contemplating my hearingless life, I took a photo of the scene before me …

At the next table, a dad was loving his son, and the boy was returning the favour.  Brief blessed moments of eye contact.  Cuddling.  Lifting the young one way up high, to his delight.

Just beyond, a woman leans way back in her chair.  Is it simply a delicious stretching of the back, or is there more?  Perhaps a long sigh into the travails of life?  Or remembering a precious moment with a beloved?  I’ll never know … but there she was.

And in the background, on the street, a young man brought wonder to my face as he removed the plastic sheeting of a sign covering a window.  The real thrill was seeing him put up the new sign.  Such graceful, dancing skill.  There were two vertical strips.  He aligned the first one perfectly to the window frame, and used his tool to smooth the sheet.  I saw the partial word “roomwoning”.  The edge went through the second “o” of “room”, and joined almost seamlessly.  I applauded the beauty of movement.

***

There’s so much to see with two eyes

And to hear with two ears