How to describe silence

A compelling description of silence comes from Ralph Ellison’s masterpiece “Invisible Man”:

“‘Then silence, The lonesome hole banked with poignant flowers. The dozen white-gloved hands waiting taut upon the silken ropes. That awful silence. The final words are spoken. A single wild rose tossed farewell, bursts slowly, its petals drifting snowlike upon the reluctantly lowered coffin. Then down into the earth; back to the ancient dust; back to the cold black clay . . . mother . . . of us all’” (pg.131)

I was drawn to Ellison’s beautifully crafted formation of silence. I found myself standing right there in the moment watching the world move without noise. I appreciate this description of silence over many others because it achieves something important: dynamic. I was always taught as a musician that dynamics could be quantified in decibels, as something loud and soft. However, as I ventured deeper into the sciences, I gained an acutely postulated sense of dynamic. In physics, the dynamic is the study of forces and motion. From the excerpt above, although there is no musical dynamic, the words move us through visual and sensual cues through physical dynamics.

I take the discussion around silence seriously. As a person who is hard of hearing, people can attribute my limited range as an isolating and dehumanizing feature. “Oh, can you not hear that?” or “Must be pretty quiet for you” are some stock phrases. The fact that I am hard of hearing does not predispose me to a silent and still world. Rather, it is the creation of silence as a dynamic reality that I personally enjoy. My silence is never the darkroom where there are no sound waves. There is always a slight ringing in my ear that frames the noises around me. I do not find my form of silence awful, but I do find the subjection of silence from others to be troubling.

Katherine Bouton in her book “Shouting Won't Help: Why I--and 50 Million Other Americans--Can't Hear You” points out that the suffering felt by hearing loss is not done alone. Shouting is symptomatic of people’s assumption of hard-of-hearing individuals along with leaning in on occasion. It is as if the ableist body, through their voice, seduces our auditory system, by which we must draw our attention to them. Even so, I would note the ableist body using their voice to shout is less than seductive. I recall a brief period in 10th grade when I tried a hearing aid. I was jumping with joy to imagine that with a simple device the strife of my hearing loss could be wiped away. There was a cool nifty app I downloaded on my phone to control the hearing aid. There was a restaurant setting, a place to select music, and adjustments to the frequency level I could hear. It was a dream come true. Until, however, I took it to school. I did not feel insecure about the hearing aid, no one could really tell it was even there. Nevertheless, I went the entire day feeling like I was deep in a heavy metal rock band, where all of the noises and voices around me were amplified. I asked the hearing aid specialist, and they made adjustments, yet these changes did not work. I cried to my mom over my frustration. Was there something wrong with me?

Bouton discusses in their work that 50 million people have some form of hearing loss and are hard of hearing. I am one of those people. As I often say in my gratitude reflections, “I am one of those bright lights”. There is nothing to be ashamed of being hard of hearing. There is, however, an imposed silence we often succumb to when surrounded by able-bodied people. Asking someone to repeat themselves, or asking for closed captions can be difficult sometimes. Even so, I have recently demanded more of myself. Terms of accessibility cannot be generated and maneuvered for every person living with a disability in every room they enter. Rather, as a person living with a disability, I have a right to ask for my needs. I do not need to disclose my identity but cannot assert the power of my identity to spaces that have historically confined disability.

The attribution of silence from others continues to be difficult to overcome. I could become defensive from their inquiries or remarks, but how would I capture my experience of disability culture if I demonized their actions? This does mean I should be submissive to ableist culture, silencing myself. There is masked beauty in the silence that I have attempted to articulate in this article. A mundane occurrence of silence can have gravity and weight for someone that people may never know about. I can share my perspective on disability by how I view and hear the world.

Today, in this post, I am unsure if I have done justice to my thoughts, but I do know that I have deepened my appreciation for the power of storytelling. As I whisk across my keyboard in my final strokes, I yearn for silence - my own conception of silence.