Life: the mono mix

I heard my last stereo album when driving home in the dark. I'd liked it more and more, having played it a few times on Spotify, – in fact, it was a break up album of sorts– and I’d just bought the CD for the car. Super, by the Pet Shop Boys, blends the energy and chops of the their 80s material with the insights and melancholy nostalgia of old age. At my time of life, about to go to university as a mature student, I could really identify with this particular paradox. I felt old and past it but at the same time gearing up to live as a pseudo-young person and genuinely excited about re-booting my life. I felt like a character in a Hollywood film that gets to be 18 again, but with the experience of an older man. 

Music means a lot to me and this was one of those moments in life where it meant more to me than most.The context was perfect. Late at night, where the road is yours and your immaculate 2nd hand car is your favourite toy. About to start university and with hopes for the future. Re-kindling a relationship with one of my favourite bands after their spark seemed to have died forever.

So it’s perhaps fitting that this was the last album I heard in stereo. It felt like the start of something but actually it was the end and I was going out in style.

As I crossed over to North Kent and joined the M2 the CD player went back to the first track and I was happy to let the album repeat. However, somewhere close to home in Margate my ears starting hurting. I was somewhat concerned, as I hadn’t had the stereo up very loud. But little did I imagine how serious it was. 

Later, when I was in bed that night, I noticed a sound that was like a machine humming somewhere. I wondered what it was and where it was. I looked out the window, I think I may have even put my ear to the floor. I didn’t realise the sound was in my head. By the morning it seemed to be gone and I didn’t listen to any music, as I was up in London the whole day. But the humming resumed a day or so later and since then I’ve had intermittent tinnitus.

Worse than the tinnitus, I now have significant hearing loss in my left ear. If I listen to something through my almost deaf ear now it sounds like it's coming through a 1920s telephone. Apparently, if you have rapid hearing loss- particularly low frequency- you need urgent attention. Otherwise, the loss is permanent. Firstly, I had a week’s delay because I had to register with a new doctor. (my old surgery closed down) and the receptionist wouldn't let me book an emergency appointment. Then I had an initial consultation- that ruled out wax or blockage- and am still awaiting tests that may identify a cause but I fear not a cure.

I spoke to a Dr Scott on the phone yesterday. I said I’d read about my symptoms online. They seemingly match a relatively rare condition that needs immediate treatment or the hearing loss is irreversible. I was very calm and polite but he was very curt, told me not to believe everything I read on the internet and to leave it to the experts, they needed to run tests first. If I was in a hurry I’d have to go private.

Fine. I’ll wait for them, in their expert opinion, to tell me I’ve permanent hearing loss in one ear.

What caused the problem, I don’t know. But I’d picked up a particularly heavy and unpleasant cold at a YHA in The Lake District and I wonder if it was a virus. I recommend you don’t sleep in YHA dormitories. They’re full of old men snoring, coughing and farting. And possibly passing on ear killing viruses.

But about the consequences. Never listening to an album in stereo again is something I shall certainly miss. I’m such a stereo geek I obssess over how the Beatles albums were engineered and I’ve tried in vain to point out to people on Quora and Amazon that several Beatles albums are not in real stereo because the instruments were not stereo recorded. You’d be surprised how this offends some people, but it’s true. This is why A Hard Day’s Night (the album) sounds so much better than Help (the album). It's an earlier LP but, long story short, it was accidentally recorded properly.

Anyway, I will never benefit from favourite stereo albums again. I’m going to be asking people to repeat themselves a lot more often. If my mobile phone vibrates near me I can no longer tell what direction the vibrating is coming from.

It's worse outside. At first I wondered why it sounded so noisy but the answer is in the question. I am now hearing noise because I'm not able to separate sounds. It's a horrible, brash world all of a sudden. When I go out I just want to get my business over and done with and scurry back home.

But that's not actually the worst of it. I am just about to start a joint-honours degree in Chinese and Creative Studies. Both degrees require I have good hearing and now I have adequate hearing at best. I am okay one to one but I am currently in a situation where I am actively avoiding everyday sounds- like children in supermarkets- and, in fact, ANYTHING because anything that makes noise makes my ear ring and I am about to enter a particularly noisy environment. The excited chatter of students, media in lecture halls and classrooms, the hustle and bustle of university life. 

I have spent weeks excited about the prospect of having a social life again after years of living a very solitary one but now it's obvious this condition could have me seeking the sanctity of quiet spaces. From what I've read, it affects your social life because if you sit at a noisy table or in a noisy pub you cannot hear what people are saying.

And how is it going to look in my first Chinese lesson when I say that I lived in China 7 years, the class gasp in admiration, my tutor speaks to me in Chinese and I say, “What? Sorry, I didn’t hear that, I’m almost deaf.” This is the absurdity of my life.

And this could hardly have come at a worse time. Trying to get treatment for my ears when specialist appointments may not be available until September or October, by which time I have to cancel because I’m moving and start all over again. Find a new GP in North Wales. Be referred to a specialist all over again. Maybe not see one until November for a problem that began in July. By which time I wouldn't be surprised if someone tells me that I really should have got this seen to sooner.

But I am not as despondent as I might be. There is an irony that is not lost on me. As soon as I bought my new car back in July I just had to start buying CDs and though I didn’t have the money I spent around £50 on some all time faves for my car. I imagined driving around the university environs with Push the Button, Different Class or Black Death (Bohren & der Club of Gore) on my stereo. Ferrying the kids to the pub (I’m mostly tee-total these days) in my 23 year old Fiat Punto with an album whacked up showing how groovy and discerning I was, like a Jedi Master about town. (I'd also been looking at upgrading my keyboard). 

A materialist would say it’s just rotten luck, my going half deaf, and maybe it is but I’m taking it as a prod from the universe. The ear problem was a wake up call for someone that had an inner tin ear.

Yes, my music sensibility is now diminished, and even the ability to do the sound editing on my movie, I’m working on. ADR or voice overdubs can sound flat and unnatural if the sound placement is wrong and you need two ears to get the balance right. But in the loss of a key technical ability- stereo hearing- I see the opportunity to focus on the strengths that I have, perhaps spreading myself less thinly than I have might have. And there’s nothing like the humiliation of the body failing to focus the mind on what is important before one shuffles off this mortal coil.

And so it may be that my ear problem may be a blessing, helping me use my time more constructively. And to face my own mortality. It's certainly making life less enjoyable and that makes death seem like less of a bore.

I drove again in my car yesterday. It was lashing it down, I thought the car would start leaking but it held firm. I’d left my stereo at home. The future is not looking as bright as it was, I’m quite worried to be honest, but when I drove home again in the dark I saw a strange phenomena. The eastern horizon was thick black but there was a spot in it that looked like an orange cloud. I assumed it was artficial light from a nearby town but as I came closer it seemed actually to be a natural break in the clouds, only at night it manifested as an orangey colour, rather than blue or white it might in daylight. I hope that is my future. That the future looks dark but there is an unexpected and unexplained patch of light somewhere.