Scar

The first acupuncture needle went in painlessly. This surprized me slightly. Some did hurt. For some, he had me take a deep breath. I was attentive and cooperative, trying not to be a nurse/bad patient. When I was needled on one side, he covered me with one of those foil thermal blankets., and my own metabolism warmed me. Felt like it was being held up, tent-like on the spiky projections. Some of the most painful punctures eased, disappeared from my senses. Others that I had hardly noticed began to ache. The pain seemed to travel from place to place, to swell and shrink. I became fascinated with the subtle movements, like watching waves in my mind's eye. I tried to tune out the soothing, repetitive music, and remember not to move, as I was covered in spines.

He retuns, and turns on the lights, covering my dark adapted eyes, and deftly removes the needles. I revolve, and the process repeats, the pain not always where expected, just as in massage. I am diagnosing myself, processing the newer metaphors of Chinese medical theory. The flow resumes, heat and ache, electricity and life, sinuses clogging, and I hear the storm hitting, through the walls. Booming thunder far more reassuring than the music playing through again.

The experience continues through my week. Definite improvement in my energy level, the pain in the rest of my body gone. The focus of pain is the same, but has changed, less persistent. I still have to stand, but I can sit to eat lunch tolerably, and walk afterward. My gait is normal, save for a few minutes first thing in the morning. Sitting on the Throne is not a torture, with predictable positive unclenching. After a twelve hour shift, I am tired, but not depleted, as I have been so often.

This is the right therapy, I feel certain. This is not, primarily, a physical trauma I am trying to heal. I am the sum of myself and the roughing up life has given me. I'm not going to get rid of the scars, but I can integrate them, use them, learn from them. I have known too many women who wax on about "learning experiences" but never actually seem to learn anything. This hurts, I will not like the hurt, but I can wring out the lesson, and change.

And change again.

And change again.

And still be the little girl who moved a concrete drainspout with neighborhood kids, and still has the scar down her shin to prove it. Prove that I lost my grip on it.

I sat on the closed toilet seat, tears running down my face, as my brothers put the entire box of band-aids across the laceration, glad that they kept our easily panicked father away from me until mom got home. I was crying, but I was also watching the blood, the process of cleaning and bandaging, staying very still.