It’s only been a few months since legendary singer Paul Simon went public with his hearing loss and he now says he’s still adjusting.
Simon, who has lost most of his hearing in his left ear, addressed that challenge during a post-screening Q&A for the documentary “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon” at the Toronto International Film Festival, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“I haven’t accepted it entirely, but I’m beginning to,” Simon reportedly said of his hearing loss while on stage with the film’s director, Alex Gibney.
Simon first said that he had gone mostly deaf in his left ear in an interview with The Times UK back in May.
“Quite suddenly I lost most of the hearing in my left ear, and nobody has an explanation for it,” he said at the time. “So everything became more difficult. My reaction to that was frustration and annoyance; not quite anger yet, because I thought it would pass, it would repair itself.”
As a result, performing live has been a challenge.
While in Toronto, Simon said he still plays his guitar daily.
“It’s the instrument that allows me to express myself creatively. But it’s also where I go for solace. If I’m feeling … ‘whatever.’ So it’s a very crucial thing to me,” he said. “You know, something happens to you when you have some sort of disability that changes your awareness or changes how you interact with life.”
Simon first rose to musical acclaim in the 1960s as one half of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, before he went on to have an award-winning solo career.