Hearing the Wren

The other day Vickie and I were sitting in our sunroom when she asked, “Do you hear that?”

“No, I don’t hear anything,” I replied.

“There is a wren outside singing.”

“I don’t hear it.”

If I had been outside I would have probably heard it, but a wall between me and the wren blocked my hearing. In this stage of life I’ve come to realize that I really don’t hear as well as I once did. I love the song of the wren, such a little bird with a large song filling the air - its song can envelop our yard and dwarf the chirpings of the other birds.

I still do pretty good with low tones and sounds, but sometimes high notes and tones escape my hearing; and if there is background noise...well, that is more of a problem than ever.

I recently discovered that one ear can hear high sounds better than the other; I was in our basement storage room and saw a red warning light for our canine Invisible Fence and realized that I should have been hearing a high beeping noise that accompanies the red light - I removed one side of my ear muffs (it was cold that day and I’d been outside) but didn’t hear anything, then I removed the other side and heard the high-pitched beeping.

As I’ve pondered all of this, it occurs to me that sometimes we have to trust others to hear what we cannot hear. There was no doubt in my mind that a wren was singing when Vickie said so, even though I couldn’t hear it. I have long known that our dogs can hear what I cannot hear and sense what I cannot sense; I’ve learned to pay attention to them when their behavior indicates that something is happening - there is usually a reason their ears perk up, when they growl, or when they run to a window or door. I’ve learned to trust our dogs before I trust my eyes or my ears.

One evening a few years ago, when we had Darby and Mitz, they both hunkered down and started moaning deep and low, we had no idea what was happening. The next day we learned that a wind-shear ripped through our area, missing our home by perhaps half a mile - trees were mown down in a swath as if a giant with a scythe had been harvesting them.

Sometimes we need other’s hearing, sometimes their seeing, sometimes their intuition, sometimes their thinking, always their perspectives - we really do need others. We really can’t hear it all or see it all or think it all or have an all-encompassing perspective - we can’t do it ourselves.