by Suzie Carr
“Much better.” I’d let Dean tackle that question with more detail on his own. God knew he’d be back to her table in the flea market before surgery.
“Good to hear.” She pushed the note toward the computer and walked back to us. “He’s in good hands with Willow and Yvonne.” She opened up her arms to the children. “Come on now. Let’s get out of here and leave this kind woman with some peace.”
“Bye kids.” I patted them on their heads.
“Enjoy the peace now.” She opened up the door, and the kids bolted like dogs breaking loose of their leashes. She smiled pleasantly at me before strolling after them.
As soon as they walked out, silence invaded the space. It sounded foreign in the trail of the kids’ laughter and fighting. It also opened up too much space for me to think about that Brandy friend. Why wouldn’t she have a girlfriend? Though, she might’ve just been nothing more than a friend.
I sat down and took in the room. My eyes followed the crown molding, then the suede window treatments, dangling elegantly from a curved, golden rod with intricate carvings. Next, I landed on the first of many oil paintings, a lone wolf howling at a bright orange, full moon. The brush strokes created deep grooves, the haunting kind that stood out from the rest of the painting as cold and isolating.
God, I hoped Brandy was just a friend.
# #
About ten minutes after Willow’s aunt left with the kids, the bald guy with liver cancer emerged from a treatment room. Yvonne followed him out.
“Vanilla latte from Starbucks?” He pointed his finger at Yvonne while heading toward the door.
“That stuff is no good for you.” She shot him a stern look.
He looked at me. “I’m dying. I can eat whatever I want. It’s freaking awesome!” He tapped his chest and laughed.
I laughed too, for lack of a better response.
“I’m getting you a vanilla latte,” he said to Yvonne. Then he turned back to me. “You look like you could use some fattening up. So, I’m getting you one too.”
He walked out the door on a giant stride before I could even open my mouth to answer.
“He’s awfully excited about dying.” I watched him stop traffic as he did the last time I was there.
“Either that or he’s on some good drugs.” Yvonne lingered her gaze on him as a car narrowly missed him. He slapped the hood telling the person to have a fucking lovely day.
“He’s really dying?”
“I’m afraid so.” She clicked her tongue. “I’m just managing his pain at this point.”
“He looks like he could get through an Insanity workout without breaking a sweat.”
“Pat’s great at hiding his pain.” She cocked her head and walked over to the front desk. “It’s a shame. He tells me he used to be a real asshole before getting diagnosed.”
I arched my eyebrow. “Used to be?”
She smirked. “He’s got no filter. But he’s harmless.”
“Knowing you’re going to die has to suck.”
“Sometimes a death sentence brings people closer to life.” She grinned. “He does these talks for us, like I told Dean, where he speaks about regrets, you know, typical things like wanting to be a better husband and father, wishing he took better care of his business, hating that his roof needs replacing and his yard is too big to tend to, being too stubborn to repair broken friendships, and the one big one is not taking care of his health when he had it. It breaks my heart every time he says these things, even though when he presents it, he’s hysterical. He’s got the whole audience roaring. He just has that way about him. It’s fantastic.” She looked whimsically out the window. “Absolutely fantastic.”
The same girl from the open house entered the reception area and invited me to follow her into a treatment room. “I’ll see you in there,” I said over my shoulder.
The treatment room, with its soothing buttercream-colored walls, only reminded me how totally out of my element I was. I did not want acupuncture.
“Here’s a gown to dress into. You can keep your under garments on, but be sure to remove your socks.” She handed me a blue cotton robe wrapped in plastic. “Yvonne will be with you shortly.” She bowed out of the room, leaving me to contemplate whether I should jump out the window and run like hell away from the needles, cream-colored walls, and honeysuckle fragrance.
I slipped out of my shoes, first, then my socks. I wiggled my toes against the soft carpeting. I had committed myself.
So, I climbed out of my clothes, one selfless move at a time, for Dean’s sake, and eventually slipped into the gown. My nerves gained full control at that point, rendering me incapable of drawing a relaxed breath.
Moments later, Yvonne knocked and entered. “I had bet Willow twenty dollars that you’d take me up on my free acupuncture offer eventually. Looks like my doggy gets steak for dinner tonight.”
“What kind of dog do you have?”
“A cute little mutt I adopted from the shelter a few years ago. If the state board of health didn’t exist, she’d be here with me every day. But, they frown upon them, even though they are natural healers and good for a person’s spirit. Even better than that honeysuckle you smell.”
“I’d love to adopt a dog, but Dean fears them. I’d never be able to bring her to the office with me, so the idea is moot. I work twelve to fifteen hour days typically.”
She sat down. “I’m sure your office, like any other office, could use a friendly mascot to clear up some of the staleness those cube farms can create. Acupuncture, as well as some behavioral therapy, can help him with that anxiety.”
“That’ll never happen.”
“Want to bet?” Her eyes sparkled.
I waited for her to tell me she was joking. “Seriously?”
A playful smile blossomed. “Fifty dollars he will be walking around the office with a rescue dog trailing happily behind him within a month.”
I extended my hand. “Earning fifty bucks has never been so easy.”
“You’ve got so little faith in the system.”
“I’m not a believer.” I rolled my eyes before offering her an apologetic grin. “I’m only here for moral support.”
She leaned back in her chair. “What are you expecting will happen in today’s session?”
“Pain.”
“Ha.” She slapped her leg. “This is going to be fun.”
“How about we just pretend we did a session and not?”
“Not on your life, sweetheart. I don’t lie. Ever.”
“Ever?”
“Ever.” She pointed her eyes at me.
I sat in the chair and bounced my feet up and down, releasing the sudden rise of adrenaline.
“So how are you, really, Lia?”
I exhaled and my chest tightened. “I’m fine. Really I am.”
“You’re lying.” She eyed my legs. “I’ve spent two minutes with those children and needed Reiki just to calm me down.”
I placed my hands on my knees to stop the bounce. “They’re actually a nice distraction.”
She smiled warmly. “Distractions are always welcome, aren’t they?”
“Yes indeed.”
“Dean told me about the doc’s visit over the phone. So, yes, I imagine taunting and yelling are a welcome distraction. Kids have a way of adding pizzazz to life, don’t they?”
I laughed to ease the building of tension in between my shoulder blades. “Yeah. They do.” I removed my hands from my knees, trusting in my bodily control again. “Dean said something to me today about how he’s sprung to life more since finding out about the tumor in his neck.”
She just stared at me, letting my sentence marinate between us.
“Hmm. Just like with Pat, it humbled him with the gift of pause,” she stated. “Life has suddenly become critical. The red alarm has blared. His central nervous system has fired up for the first time in years perhaps. Adrenaline has spiked. Synapses have reconnected. Nerves are tingling. A deadline has appeared, and
he has woken up to the fact that life is fragile.”
“I’m discovering just how fragile it is.”
“Disease happens. No one is immune. We all come more alive in the face of adversity. You, in particular, strike me as a natural fighter who would come to battle and face any threat with her fists raised and her best attitude. You’d choose to face the threat head on at first, then, just as many do, you’d take a more Zen approach and search for an alternative way around the new obstacle. You might choose to go around it, dig under it, or even fly over it. Either way, you wouldn’t let it stop you.”
“Damn. My mind sounds so much better than real life when you talk about it, like it’s the next summer blockbuster fantasy movie.”
“Threats can bring us back to life because they cause us to reflect. Everyone should live as though she were dying. Imagine the things a person would do with her time? I can guarantee, you wouldn’t be sitting in front of a television set for four to five hours a night like the average American does right now. Staring at reality is a good thing.”
I arched my eyebrow at her, not sure I bought into that line of reasoning.
“Don’t be sad for Dean. Be happy that he has the opportunity to discover living again.”
I reflected on that for a moment. “That man doesn’t need a disease to show him how to appreciate life.”
“Neither do you. You’ve got the power right up here,” she tapped her temple. “In your noggin. We manifest everything in the mind. Good and bad, it all starts there. So any lifelessness you’re experiencing right now, if you are, you’re choosing it. You’re creating your own reality with each and every thought.”
I studied her soft eyes, and in them I found peace and safety. “That sounds dangerous,” I joked.
She grasped my hands in hers and spoke to me. “It’s powerful.”
The room closed in around us, blocking out everything but her voice and her warm spirit. “Within all of us lies an energy source that, when turned on, can produce extraordinary results. It has a pulse all its own. It lies dormant within our bodies, waiting on that perfect moment when it’s given free-range to spread its light and release its power. Its sole purpose is to bring peace and balance to the body it protects. When activated, it becomes like a star, radiating light and healing energy throughout the blood vessels, organs, and cells. The body becomes engorged with its nutritious, life-affirming juice. Every fiber of our being starts to dance to an energizing beat, spreading the light even further into the darkest, most hidden areas of our bodies. Light seeps everywhere, and every cell starts to expand and reach out toward the light, just like a flower turning to the sun and blooming with a brilliance brought on by the refreshing nutrients of Mother Earth. When every cell in your body is at that kind of grateful attention, opened up in full bloom, it becomes a vessel of hope, tranquility, balance, and beautiful health.”
She tapped her chest lightly. “We all carry that source within. It wants to be activated. Once it is, it can never be turned off. It becomes our guiding light through every step we take, every interaction, every crisis we meet. It protects us and even allows us to share this with others who haven’t learned to turn theirs on yet, or are in a weakened state and unable to flip that switch.”
I sat trancelike, listening to Yvonne’s words. A lump formed in my throat, desperate to discover that peace for myself. “I’m not capable.”
“Sure you are.” She squeezed my hands. “Acupuncture can help everyone who is open to it by relieving stress, impurities, and imbalances. Many people experience a heightened state of bliss with it, opening them up to see things more clearly and helping them answer plaguing questions with pinpoint clarity, by unblocking pathways to help get over obstacles so the light can shine through without conflict.”
“I want to believe you. I do. It all seems too quirky, though.”
“Quirky is one way to put it, I suppose.” She laughed. “Quirky or not, it’s one of the best ways I know of to tweak energy to our advantage. We all require tweaking. Things build up in us, and we’re human, so we require interaction to help us unblock. We’re no different in respect to a clogged drainpipe or gutter. Just because they’re clogged doesn’t mean the gutter and pipe aren’t able to see the light of day again. It just means, there’s some junk that got in, and it needs some nudging to release it so the rain and the light can penetrate it once again.”
She painted a clear analogy. “Dean’s going to love this.”
“I’ve never had a patient walk away dissatisfied. It’s a unique experience for everyone. I once had a novelist come in, plagued by writer’s block. She was a stress ball, tight on a deadline and panicking because she had no story. Stress blocked her creativity. So, we put a needle in it, and after her session, when I entered the room, she begged me to grab a notebook and pen so she could write down the stream of consciousness that came to her. In those fifteen minutes, she wrote down the plotline to her novel, and it’s become a bestseller on the New York Times Bestseller List. Another person, an artist, came to me plagued by negative reviews of her paintings. She thought her career had been destroyed. Then, we put a needle in it, and when she came out of that session, she had created a process for dealing with rejection that to this day has helped her critically evaluate the criticism in a way that has helped her grow into an award-winning painter whose work now hangs in the Baltimore Museum of Art.”
I wanted what she sold. “I could use some extra creativity, for sure.”
“Let’s put a needle in it, then.” She rose and led me over to the treatment table.
I followed her, and to my surprise, all the apprehension from before had vanished. I walked with a bounce, excited to see what would happen. I wanted that treatment. I wanted that experience. I wanted her to prove me wrong and turn me into a believer.
I climbed onto the table and rested back against the soft blanket. I stared at a painting of a blue sky with white puffy clouds that hung on the ceiling directly above me. “A flat screen television would be an even more awesome idea.”
“You’ll have your own movie playing in your head in a few minutes.”
She began to examine my feet and fingers.
I eased against the table, sinking into the experience.
“I’m looking for reactive areas to determine which points to use,” she said.
“Are the needles thick?”
“They are hair-thin.” She circled around to my legs. “They’re sterile, pre-packaged, and disposable.” She picked up a package of them to show me. “I’m going to place the needles at various depths, ranging from a fraction of an inch to two inches.”
I wanted to faint.
“I’m also going to use different combinations of points to help stimulate sources of healing in your body.”
The room began to spin, as I imagined a thick needle plunging into my skin and squirting blood.
She stood at the bottom of the table near my feet. The needle pricked me like a mosquito bite as she inserted the first one into my foot.
“Is my foot supposed to tingle?”
“Yes. That means it’s working. This is called Deqi.”
She continued to place needles strategically along my body. With each needle insertion, the pricking lessened and heavy tingling increased. At one point, my foot began to tremble and vibrate. “Is it normal to have my foot jumping like that?”
“That’s your body responding favorably. You had quite a blockage in that meridian.”
She stood back. “Okay, so now, we leave these in for twenty minutes. I want you to close your eyes, let your mind relax, and focus on your inner peace. Slow, steady, deep breaths. Some people find it helpful to count backwards to keep their mind clear. With each breath, imagine you are inhaling clean energy full of light and power, and allow it to pass through your entire body. Then, when you exhale, imagine you are filtering out the waste and keeping the nutrients.”
I closed my eyes and began to visualize as she instructed.
She exited the room.
I counted backwards from one hundred. By ninety, I eased into relaxation.
Before long, I pictured me and Dean at the beach again, building another sandcastle.
We built it up, higher and mightier than before, and that time we laughed and talked more and sank into that moment as though it was the most precious moment in our lives. I didn’t want to miss a nanosecond of it. I wanted Dean to focus intently on the fun of it all. That was his moment, and I wanted to help him enjoy it to its fullest. I wanted every spec of sand to massage his worries away, as it poured out of the creases in between his fingers, and landed like dust at his knees before the sea breeze picked it up and whisked it away.
His shoulders eased down and a peace rested in the spokes of his eyes. He seemed to relax into the smell of the sea, the taste of the salt on the cusp of each breeze, the wetness of the sand between his toes and fingers, and the majestic visual appeal of our shimmery sandcastle as it grew to the largest, most grand that either one of us had ever seen.
I wanted to drop a protective coating on it to save it, so we could always remember that day at the beach when life stood still and all that mattered was the building of that castle and the quiet folds of time and space that blanketed us in safety.
As its walls remained strong and its beauty still very much a part of our existence, we stood back and admired the product of our shared time and effort. And even as that tide rolled back in, just as it did the other day, and washed our memory into the sea, a happy lightness lifted us, knowing that no amount of force could destroy that which we now unpackaged in our hearts, our treasured time together building temporary sandcastles that stood and fell to remind us that life was temporary and so it should be experienced without limits, regrets or unfulfilled dreams.
I closed my eyes in that scene and enjoyed the light mist of sea water on my face. With every inhale, and its respective exhale, the mist cleared up any confusion as to my purpose standing on that beach; to remember that I was, and always would be, just as intricate a part of the universe as the mist, sand, shells, and wind were.