Post-Traumatic Growth

Dear Reader,

Sometime after I moved to Washington, D.C. in 2010, I developed hyperacusis and could no longer hear the sound of music without feeling a lot of very physical pain, as though all the dogs in the entire world were barking, and all the women, children, and old people in the entire world were all screaming and crying at the exact same time.

I became a chronically ill recluse between increased neurological events, autoimmune disease, and the debilitating pain from the uncompensated hip injury I received while serving the Democratic party in 2008 — during the lead up to Obama’s first big win.

Make America Great Again.

Hyperacusis was a very hard experience for me, causing the disorientation of zozobra. Who was I if I couldn’t have an intense love affair with music? I’d never not been surrounded by birds singing, Dad on the piano, operas bumping through the house.

I’d be listening to songs on repeat, especially “Adam’s Song” or “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan, the only lilith fair chick I listened to, while I painted or geeked out on things. I mostly listened to hip-hop and cock rock. I especially loved androgynous men with long hair and pretty lips. If I could make one wish, it would be: I wish for the lead guitarist of every band to look like a soccer player or like Brad Pitt from Legends of the Fall.

It was an ideal environment for child development — an old blind man raising a scrawny-but-scrappy coyote pup. We were an odd pair in our shared direct and synesthetic language: affectionate, curious, bold, direct, civil, and always teasing.

This year, my own coyote pup would’ve won a spelling bee had his teacher heard him correctly. We both find spelling fun. It’s never pained me to spell something wrong or to mix up my idioms. I’m famous mostly for my malaphors. It’s thrilling! Like, “Woah, what just happened?” With math, however, I’d fall apart, immediately. All my limbs would go limp and my body would play dead. Adults would poke at me with sticks.