Dancing the path

Today my audiologist invited me to consider a new resource: a hearing aid especially designed for tinnitus patients, the Widex Zen.  As well as provide acute and specific amplification of outside sounds, its technology offers continually playing background fractal tones (think non-repeating wind chimes) that stimulate and distract the mind from annoying internal sounds.  Voila, relaxation…all for the low low price of $4,510.

We talked for a long time, a fascinating privilege since he has been practicing for 20 years and has lots of compelling stories to share.  As an active listener, he validated every aspect of my conversation. He said he could hear the weariness that accompanies a long journey (42 years) in my tone of voice - the overwhelm and need for help with new coping skills as my condition worsens. 

I also explained, however, how tinnitus has changed me and continues to guide me down new pathways. I am richly blessed by a growing focus on one-on-one relationships. Creative writing and online communication (without auditory stress) have also become profoundly fulfilling. He responded that in twenty years of practice he has rarely known patients with my stage of tinnitus and hearing loss to be able to recognize the opening of new, hopeful doors as old familiar ones shut.  I told him discouragement over closed doors is real, and I couldn’t begin to pry the new ones myself.  But once they do graciously open, I choose to dance the path and expect divine purpose to lead me in a choreography that causes the torment to pale in comparison.

“We must have our gaze fixed on heaven.  Then nothing here can shake us.”

 - Priestmonk living on the island of Patmos

“The meaning and purpose of dancing is the dance. Like music also, it is fulfilled in each moment of its course. You do not play a sonata in order to reach the final chord, and if the meaning of things were simply in ends, composers would write nothing but finales.”   - British philosopher