All is Well Friday Round-Up

All is well in this living room but almost nothing is well in the world. I am mindful of this. My cochlear implant surgery, the installation of electrodes, the healing of the long incision behind my ear, my wavering balance, how my voice seems to have changed in the past week, the wait for the implant to become live, to suddenly hear with an ear that has been near death for years – all of that is the product of the privilege of peace and access and resources.

I endeavored to be a serene and cheerful person at the hospital. This goal was easier to achieve because everyone I dealt with was similarly so and also efficient and relaxed. Plus the minute I hitched myself on the bed, the nurse spread a puffy space age heated blanket on me, telling me that research documented that healing was faster and complications fewer when patients stay warm. This little gambit set the tone – I became an adorable old lady. The transformation was amazing.

I’m not depressed by I am farblunget. This is a Yiddish word with some currency around our house. It means: the state of aimless wandering or being hopelessly lost and unsure where to turn next. This describes my floating, unfocused self perfectly. The key thing this week was to not act on my farblunget-ness, start quitting things and rolling up my nap mat. Fortunately, the nature of aimless wandering is that it prevents concerted action. My husband says everybody has post-operative farblunget-ness. Who knew?

Sometimes I think the enormous sucking sound I hear in the distance is the bottomless pit of old age. And other times I think it’s just residual tinnitus from the surgery – great waves of water, garbage trucks dumping at the landfill, trains pushing stalled cars off the tracks. It is a vast maw – old age – and hard to steer clear of although I am trying.

It is chocolate week on the Great British Baking Show. The deaf chick who has been Star Baker for two weeks in a row had to leave the baking tent because it was too hot. Her first work – a chocolate tort – was deemed gooey by the judges, Prue and Paul. The judging of the six individual cheesecakes is about to begin. I am rapt. This is my level right now. Next week I’ll be amazing.