Lend me your ears?

I wrote a little essay about my ears and other body parts. It’s called “What I Know About Dismemberment” and it will appear in one of my favorite literary journals The Museum of Americana at the end of this month. But I thought it would be fun to talk a little more here about my ears. So, (famous quote from Shakespearean play goes here).

 When is an idiom not an idiom?

The average adult female ear is 2 and a half inches long. Mine are just shy of three inches. Proportional to my other facial features, I’m all ears, literally.

If musicality were dependent on ear size, I would be packing concert halls.

I do regret that mine isn’t a musical ear. I cannot carry a tune. Neither could my father whose ears I inherited. I don’t know whether my grandfather could carry a tune. I only know from photos that his ears foreshadowed mine.

Is it lucky to have big ears?

Yes! Yes, it is! Straight from the Internet: “Big ears with thick and large ear lobes are auspicious signs. People who have them are thought to be very lucky in life.”  This is not a far-off conjecture.

I’m grateful just to have ears, to listen with and to hang earrings on. Does jewelry accentuate or disguise big ears? Answer: Totally screams, “look at my ears!”

Look for my short essay, “What I Know About Dismemberment,” on the Americana Stories page of The Museum of Americana: A Literary Review on Tuesday, February 28.