Engaged

Such a weekend this has been!  Another weekend of Swedish Massage and Kinesiology! 

I was running a fever on Friday evening and decided to stay home on Saturday.  I woke up with the fever gone, but still feeling a bit weak and headachy.  So I let myself take a slow morning, and I landed in town about 11 am, where I sat in my favoritest coffee shop and drank Earl Grey tea while I perused Kinesiology for the quiz that afternoon.  I KNOW the bones of the foot!  I know some of the basic terminology...like foreamen and fossa and crests.  I studied my little heart out.  And still missed 4 on the test, which means I got an 80%.  Oh my gosh, what a wallop to my ego!  I was 2nd in my class when I graduated from graduate school.  Yipes!!!  No dreams about getting to be validictorian of the class. 

Sunday morning was a review of all the Swedish strokes, and I found myself going blank as I practiced on "Tina," my student partner.  I was present to giving, but kept going back to the strokes I know well.  I felt a little panicky.  Frequency, repetition is the best learning device for me, but how do I do that?  They tell us to wait to buy a massage table, as there are so many different modalities, and we may discover that we fall in love with a certain kind, and so will want a certain kind of table.  BUT I REALLY need to practice.  The irony of all this, is that I had a lovely massage table sitting on my porch for several years.  Last year I gave it back to my friend as I didn't think I was going to use it.  Hah.  We're not supposed to practice outside of school anyway.  So I will wait for now.  Though impatiently.

Sunday afternoon was really hard for me.  We were studying the muscles of the thigh, and the bones around the pelvic area.  Flashbacks.  Weeping...I sat in class going through tissue after tissue, doing my darnedest to stay present to the material.  Unfortunately my darnedest wasn't good enough.  The tears went on for over an hour.  NOW I know why I nearly flunked biology in high school and college.  I was not present to the material.  It brought up too many painful memories. 

Finally, when they started lab time, I slipped out and up to see the program director, who sat and listened to me for a few minutes.  It was what I needed.  She "bore witness" to my pain.  I felt her present with me.  My tears stopped and I went back to class.  Pretty wrung out, but much more present.  After class I drove down to one of the waterfalls where I sat and let the sound of the water splash over me, washing me clean.  A little James Taylor on the drive back home left me feeling much more at peace and centered. 

This process is hard.  My body is sometimes such foreign territory to me.  I am grateful for it.  But I have hated it for so many years I don't know how to make friends at this late date.  Forgiveness...Can it forgive me?  I wouldn't forgive it.  I felt betrayed by my body.  If it takes as long for my body to forgive me, as it has for me to forgive my body...I will be 102.  Good heavens.  Grace....where are you?  I need a little bit right about now.