I need to get back to writing a little bit here every day. It was a good exercise and occasionally I'd type out some really good stuff. Thoughts and musings or what passes for thoughts in my beleaguered mind these days. And nights. I went to see Dr. Jin today. I have mornings when I'm taking care of Sophie and feel tears in the back of my throat that I swallow. A sea. So I went to Dr. Jin and she tried, again, to stick a needle in that fleshy space between the thumb and forefinger, but I knew and then she knew that I knew what was going to happen and that is pain, and it's a weird pain that I just don't can't take. So she didn't stick the needle there. After she finished with the needles she turned on the Chinese music and shut the door behind her, and I swear it's the same music that they played in the Chinese restaurant where I worked for a brief time in Carrboro, North Carolina. I was the host and seated the few customers we got in dark booths and I've written this before, but there was a Chinese waiter named Jackson who was in love with my young college self and he was always somehow behind me whispering in low tones under that Chinese music. One day he came in with a perm and I noted the perm and he said for your eyes only which I believe was a Bond film of the era. I still remember Jackson and the bags of food that the cook in the back dumped in woks and stirred around and I wonder what happened to all of it. I think about Jackson every time I lie on Dr. Jin's table with needles between my eyes my breasts and down somewhere on my feet and that Chinese restaurant music plays. I'm the hostess, still, and he's at my back, whispering in my ear and there's something so relaxing about letting it all go or come, these memories of darkness and men and food and the way light falls in a late-afternoon booth. It's not nostalgia but a meditation and after a while the Chinese music tape clicks off, Dr. Jin comes in and takes out all the needles and tells me to take these pills for my sadness and she does this for me, she says, and I love her.
Dr. Jin sounds like a wonderful woman who sees your soul. You live with fear and grief everyday, it wears a soul down. Take care of Elizabeth too.
ReplyDeleteI love that you have Dr. Jin to go to when your body and soul need balance, need clearing, need succor. And a type of pure love I doubt you would find anywhere else.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course, her treatment forces you to lie quietly for awhile where your mind can take you back to places that you can write about which are full of beauty and yearning before life became so very different.
I am glad you are wanting to get back to writing here every day, you do it so beautifully. I'm also glad you have Dr. Jin and the sweet Memories to meditate upon. The Man got approved by the VA for more acupuncture sessions for his chronic pain and PTSD, it's so good for him too and I love how he smells of peppermint essential oils when he is done.
ReplyDeleteThe photographs you post very often take my breath away. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan of writing every day and, no matter the end result, I believe it relieves stress. I try to do it on my blog, which motivates me to do it ... again, no matter the end result. It doesn't have to be (in my case) pithy or smart or meaningful or deep or long, as long as I post *something* without trying to make myself sound better (more serious, more sophisticated, more interesting, etc.) than I am. My favourite blogs are those that update frequently, and I hope you will. -Kate
ReplyDeleteA meditation, yes.
ReplyDeleteI love that photo -- at once beautiful and threatening.
"Take these pills for your sadness." I love Dr. JIn. I love that she helps to care for you.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you have your Dr. Jin. I've always found acupuncture to be so relaxing. Often I fall asleep and dream on the table.
ReplyDeleteAll good wishes to you, Elizabeth.
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY.
ReplyDeleteMemory can be a comfort when we recount it as beautifully as this.
I love it when you’re writing here regularly. I love what you write, the way you see, the way the world sounds in you ear. Those others selves are with us, in us, still.
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