Saturday, January 17, 2009

A Life Changing Massage from Gene

  I called Gene because some of my coworkers said that he was incredible**. 
  The pain and anger that I was experiencing since my adventure in the hospital, didn't seem like it was ever going to disappear on it's own.  I was sinking into a swamp of despondency and frustration. The pain I felt had become the structure to which everything else had become oriented.  I needed help.
  Gene lived and worked near my job and sounded friendly and enthusiastic on the phone.
I arrived at his place for our appointment with no idea what so ever about what to expect.  
He led me through a maze of clutter and disorder, to a room that he used as his office.  
In the room, was a massage table surrounded by piles of magazines and books.  Boxes full of miscellaneous junk were piled nearly to the ceiling.  The walls were covered with hand-drawn posters and charts illustrating muscle groups, energy meridians, and trigger points.  I had to be careful not to step on the hairbrush or the diverse toys and bits of plastic on the floor.  Gene was very excited to see me and talked fast.  He asked lots of questions, not only about my accident and injuries, but also about my diet, my favorite color and my birthday.  Between the mess everywhere and his strange manner, I was a little apprehensive.  But I never considered leaving.  My friends at work swore that he could work miracles and a miracle seemed like the only thing that might make me feel better.  
  Gene left me alone to undress and get on the table, face down, under a towel.  He returned after a few minutes and began to press his thumbs and finger tips into my back and neck.  It felt like there were rocks and ropes and knots all through my back.  The pain was so excruciating, but surprisingly, it was WELCOME.  It was terrible, but my body was also loving it.  His touch was like drinking water after a year in the desert , without.
  Gene was still talking nonstop, but I wasn't hearing a word he said.  Occasionally the phone would ring and he would stop to answer it, to my irritation, leaving me alone for what seemed like an eternity before returning to the exquisite pain.  When he started to work on my left arm that had been shattered, I saw stars...  and then, images.  Images of my father, then of my grandfather, and then other men who I had never seen but recognized as my great grandfathers.  There was fire and whiskey and broken glass and and cold anger. I realized that I was caught up in a cycle of pain and destruction.  That I had the power to interrupt the cycle and the power to create a new cycle.  
  The session lasted almost three hours.  When I left Gene's place, I felt like I was floating three feet above the ground. I felt full of oxygen and purified. But I was also mad as hell.  Gene said that this was emotion that had been stored in my muscles that was being released. I wasn't so sure.  I was still reeling from the anger that rose up like the tide when he had the audacity to say that my "accident" wasn't an "accident".  He said that the violent drunk smashing into me and all the complications in the hospital was something that I had created and that I should stop feeling sorry for myself and do something about my life.   
In spite of the anger, I felt so grateful to Gene.  Also, I knew three things that were certain:
*That I was free from the past. 
*That I had the power to control the direction of my life.
*That I wanted to be a massage therapist.  
Thanks Gene!
**(Later, I learned that word of mouth is the best way to find a bodyworker!)

In the Beginning, A Bad Wreck, Trauma, Pain and Victimization....

  Midnight, Friday, April 13th, 1989, Riding my motorcycle home after a class at Georgia State University, I was hit broadside by a car.  The driver didn't stop until he was chased down by the police.  He made a U-turn, returned to the scene, ran over to where I was splayed out on the pavement. He then began screaming curses and proceeded to kick me several times in the ribs before being pulled away by police and bystanders. He was obviously drunk and on drugs.  It turned out that he was wanted by the police in three states for armed robbery.... I was grateful to be alive and happy not to be paralyzed, but the euphoria and adrenaline wore off long before the ambulance came.  My thirty minute wait was the beginning of a two month hospital ordeal that inflicted almost as much trauma as the accident itself.   I had multiple fractures and a pneumothorax (collapsed lung).  X rays showed that I had broken my seventh cervical vertebra years earlier.  Doctors were amazed that I had not been paralyzed. I said that explained why my neck hurt so bad for such a long time after a bad tackle playing high school football.  
  I should have been allowed to return home within a week, but my lung would re-collapse each time the doctor took me off the suction equipment.  It took six weeks before an intern pointed out that the tube in my lung was pushed into the interior wall, perhaps causing an irritation that prevented the lung from healing.  The poor intern was scolded by my doctor for questioning the wisdom of inserting a second tube.  That doctor was an idiot.  Of course, the intern was right and I was able to be discharged four days after the doctor grudgingly agreed to try pulling the tube out  a little.  In the time I spent in the hospital, I was given someone else's medication by mistake... for four days.  I was unplugged from the equipment that allowed me to breath in order to be taken to the X-Ray room, then abandoned in a hallway when I stopped breathing so the orderly could run faster for help.  I regained consciousness in my room an hour later.  I suffered from the side effects of taking coedine and dimerol as often as I requested it, which was about every four hours.
But my complaints are slim compared to the 34 year old man who died in the Emergency Room, waiting to be treated for a broken leg.  Workmen breaking the floor above with jackhammers freed a 3'x3' piece of concrete that fell through the ceiling and crushed him, killing him instantly...
  The point of sharing all this is to illustrate why, after a long and difficult experience, that I had little respect for modern medicine and hospitals.  I went home and back to work with lots of pain and an addiction to pain killers.  There was not a single part of me that did not hurt.  
In addition, I felt a boiling rage.  I was burning with anger at the idiot who had run me over and the idiots at the hospital.  Perhaps even worse was a feeling of powerlessness and impotence in face of the circumstance and suffering I found myself in.  My life was pain and rage.
Then I met Gene.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

In the Beginning, Granny's Hands....

  Massage and Bodywork changed my life.  I often wonder who I would have become if I had not had the good fortune to have been introduced to this ancient and wonderful dimension of being human.  
  When I was little boy in rural Mississippi, my mother frequently left me and my brother in the care of "Granny", an African American woman who was over one hundred years old, (really)! She was full of warmth, love and vitality.  She lived alone on a neighboring farm and was always as happy to see us as we were to see her.   I was an energetic and nervous child, and would inevitably end up with some kind complaint, a head ache, a stomach ache, or a bo-bo from falling off the porch or out of her fig tree.  To treat this, Granny had something much better than the bottle of baby aspirin or Peptol-Bismol that my parents usually took out for these complaints.  Granny used her hands!
  She would have me lie on the floor or on the day bed and then settle down beside me.  She would ask me to close my eyes before she said a prayer. She then she placed the palms of her beautiful old hands on the area that hurt.  
Granny's hands were always so warm the instant she touched me, and soon they got very, very warm.
Then her hands got big.  I never peeked, but it felt like her hands became a blanket that covered all of me.  It was hard to know where I ended and her hands began as they got bigger and bigger.  It was like being in a house and then a church that was her hands.  I would feel like I was expanding outward with her hands.  All was calm and warmth and peace.  No pain.  No complaint.  Sometimes Granny would sing or hum a song while she gave me her hands. Sometimes we would just listen to the wind blowing  or the breeze ringing the homemade wind chimes on her porch.  I would eventually feel "normal" again after a few minutes.  I became just me and her hands became her hands again.  I would get up, completely renewed and feeling clear and alive...
  I loved these times with "Granny" so much, that I'm sure I was looking for any pretext for her to give me "hands".  One day she told me that she knew that there wasn't really anything wrong with me, that I should give her "hands".  I said that I didn't know how.  She said that that was nonsense, that everybody knew how. They just had to remember how.  It was just like breathing.... That it was just a matter of breathing and listening.  
  Granny sat down in a chair and I got down on the floor in front of her.  Her left knee was hurting. She told me to ask "The Good Lord " to bless us and I did.  She then told me to put my palms on her knee and to breathe and let my spirit do the work..  She closed her eyes and smiled peacefully. I didn't know if I was doing well but since she was smiling, I guessed it was alright.  She must have sensed my doubt, because right then, she told me I had "such good hands".  That was all I needed.  I just sat there with my palms on her knee, proud and happy.
After a while, she said she felt so much better, and thanked me for my "wonderful hands".
I learned that day, that giving "hands" is as wonderful as receiving them.
......That it's all just a matter of breathing and listening.