The Jar Game

During these days of pseudo-vacation in Italy, I went to the local fair, the fair of my town, Lamporecchio.

It was like going back to my childhood, or rather, my teenage years. As a child, I used to go to the fair with my parents, and then as a teenager, let’s say during middle school, with my school friends. As I grew older, I kind of disliked the village fair, maybe because I felt somewhat superior, and also because I didn’t know anyone there.

I returned to the fair a few years ago when I was sick and started slowing down with work, having more time.

This year, I went there on a couple of evenings, two times. I met my middle school friends, saw old acquaintances, and immersed myself in that noisy atmosphere of people talking, laughing, the music from the children’s rides, and the smell of food from the stalls.

And as a deaf person, how can I cope with all this? I don’t know if I had mild hearing loss (as I always say)… In short, the name “sordamaldestra” must have some meaning, right?

Now, at the fair, I couldn’t understand anything… I only heard a lot of noise around me… Then, my sister turned to me and said, “You can’t understand anything in this confusion.” But with lip-reading in Italian, it was much easier (lip-reading in English is much more difficult)….

In the end, I managed somehow because sometimes it’s better not to dwell on being deaf but simply try to move forward or pretend nothing is wrong…

The thing that makes me angry though is that I heard the cicadas, for example, in the garden in the evening at home… but it wasn’t the sound like before, or rather, it wasn’t the real sound they make… it was the sound that my cochlear implant makes…

there you go, I could use a new phrase for the next post: “how my cochlear implant makes me feel” (that wouldn’t be a bad idea).