Hearing Aids

            Last week Kim went in to order new hearing aids. Her old ones weren’t working well, and the help she got at the place where she got them was less than satisfactory. What sealed the separation was that the packaging on the replacement batteries made it impossible to open them.

 

            But I don’t want to discuss hearing aids. Kim’s new hearing doc, Jesse, after explaining all the benefits of the new ones he was selling Kim, confided three keys to hearing that he and his wife had discovered – keys that have nothing to do with hearing aids. I think it has a lot to do with the brain’s role in hearing, especially as we age.

 

            First, conversation works better if you are face-to-face with your partner. This suggests that some lip-reading is involved, and there is nothing wrong with that if it helps the communication. Also, if you are speaking and listening face-to-face, you are probably in the same room. One of the problems Kim and I sometimes have is shouting from another room. And though Jesse didn’t mention it, face-to-face conversation will help you keep in mind the person you are speaking with – not just the spoken message.

 

            Second, it may take us a moment to shift into listening mode, so it might help to give a brief lead-in before you start a conversation. Something innocent, such as, “I read something interesting today,” or “I was just thinking . . ..” I appreciate it when Kim leads with “I have an idea!” To me, this means, “Brace yourself – our lives are about to change!”

 

            I imagine a brief rewiring taking place in the brain, and it’s a courtesy to let, or make, that happen. This is especially the case if your conversation is with an old person. You probably know that you can’t multi-task the way you could when you were young. Well, you may need to help your conversation partner get through a mini-multi-task as he shifts his attention from the movie he is watching to whatever you have to say. Throat-clearing might be a way to do this.

 

            I can’t remember Jesse’s third key to listening. I must have been thinking about the second one when he was talking.

 

            Jesse’s three suggestions reinforced, for me, the distinction between hearing and listening. I have great hearing. I can hear distant sounds – a car passing the house, an unexpected thump from our back yard or roof, a loon’s faint call from across the lake. No, my problem isn’t hearing – it’s listening. Apparently, I spend too much time inside my head – thinking about my to-do list, or maybe my next blog entry. Or sometimes I’m just not paying attention. Kim suggests this happens most often when she is speaking, though sometimes it’s women in general. It may be that men just have trouble listening to what women have to say. We are more tuned into important guy stuff – you know, sports and politics – not what women tend to talk about, though for some reason I don’t know what that is.

 

            So, Kim gets her new hearing aids next week. I’m looking forward to it, partially because I can ask Jesse about his third of his keys to hearing – which are more about listening than hearing. I’m not sure when my listening aids arrive.