in her hands

Every few weeks, I drive 45 minutes into Pennsylvania to see a massage therapist. I've never really liked massages, and I would never have said that I believe in energywork, but of all of the doctors and therapists I see (dry eye opthalmologist, retinal specialist, GP, endocrinologist, social worker, psychiatrist, gynecologial surgeon, physiatrist, oral surgeon, the list goes on and on), she is the most gifted healer.

Her office is a small room in a brick building in the middle of nowhere, with a table, and low lights, relaxing music and a few plants, and a tree of life sculpture hanging on the wall. I arrive, and she lets me in, asks me how I'm doing.

She knows it has been difficult. These days I also have pain. So today, when I arrive I tell her about this, show her where it hurts.

I only ever want her to work on my upper body. This is where I hold everything: the accident, the pain, the frustration, the dread, the hopelessness. It is in my heart, my head, my back, my lungs, my shoulders, my hands.

She begins by touching my feet, my legs, and my back ever so lightly, grounding me under the warm sheet, sensing the tightness, mapping me. As she works her way up my back, she begins to stretch the muscles that have seized into balls, holding gently with her fingertips when she feels the knots, encouraging them patiently to dissolve. She is not in a hurry. She is listening to my body. Sometimes I can let my mind drift. Sometimes I'm preoccupied. Sometimes the worry and fear and deep sadness creep in, even there on the warm table.

Today, I was trying to let go. I was having mixed success, all through my back and shoulders, until she worked her way down my arms and reached my hands. In that moment, it took my breath away and touched a place somewhere deep within me to be present to this connection: one woman acknowledging everything that another woman was holding, holding these things for her just for a little while, offering healing to hands that feel full of burden. It's not uncommon for me to weep as I'm driving home from her office (which I always weirdly appreciate because sometimes my eyes are so dry I can't make tears), but today, lying there on the table, my eyes closed, so deeply grateful for her releasing me from the holding for just a minute, I felt the tears come. As she put my hands back under the sheet, I felt connected, knit together, but also almost as if my body were invisible, like I was just light. For some who feels like her body is betraying her, that feeling was a gift.

Part of the reason I sought out this particular therapist in the first place, driving 45 minutes for something that lots of people promise locally, was because she uses techniques called myofascial release and craniosacral therapy. It's another thing I'd normally think is a crock of horseshit, but I experienced it once two years ago after the accident and while it didn't cure anything, it was the most relaxing 30 minutes I'd ever spent anywhere. CST practitioners study for years before they're certified, but the fundamental belief is that the body heals itself, and that the practitioner is there to hold space for that healing. In CST, the practitioner holds pressure points in the head, creating still points in order to facilitate the flow of energy.

Today, as she cradled my head in her hands, my mind stopped all of its chatter, and settled. As she held me, slowly shifting positions, the words that were left in my conscious thoughts were "love" and "healing." I was overcome with what I can only describe as gratitude.

I've never been good at making female friends (or any friends, for that matter), but I've been so grateful for those moments in the past few years when the nurturers among my friends (who happen to be women) have done this for me, in their own ways. I'm sure it says something about my relationship with my mother, or what I wanted from her and maybe didn't get, but nonetheless, I feel so deeply fortunate to have been held by them.

If you're one of these people, or if you do this for someone, I was thinking about you today, as I lay there, broken open and feeling supported in her hands. Thank you for being the one doing the holding.