Wood Cemetary in Brooklyn New York, a landmark
©April 9, 2007

I am a righty. Have always been. There is nothing I can do with my left hand that is anywhere near what I can do with my right. So it was strange when my left elbow locked, just barely noticeably angled from where it should be. It wouldn’t release. This happened maybe 5 years ago. A visit to the chiropractor; he took me by the hand and jolted my arm, and me, like he was pumping water to the desert. After I put my eyes back into my head, I looked at my arm. It hadn’t budged. (My shoulder approached dislocation, but my elbow held fast.)

I tried to go back to the moment when this physical aberration began, but nothing was clear. I had cradled dolls. I held my baby sister. I had carried toys. I had dragged a huge briefcase to public school. Hugged my parents. I had held textbooks in my arms when I went to High School. I had held fast to Scott Ingram when he rode me on the handlebars of his bike, breathing his warm breath into my hair. I had held a 22 caliber rifle and a bow and arrow at camp. I had swum. I had stroked cats.

I had held boys on the dance floor. I had held the hands of boyfriends. I maintained balance by holding the poles in subway cars and buses. I held steering wheels.

I held more books in college. I had held a first husband. I held myself together through his death and other losses. I held a second husband. I held onto people I didn’t want to lose.

I dragged huge bags and bundles to work, with a purse flung over my arm or shoulder. I was a teacher; I was always dragging too many bags, too many things; plans, reports, geraniums for sooty city windows, lunch bags. And after work I added to my load by acquiring more bags, filled with heavy produce, groceries, and my purse. I managed to walk blocks and to get it all home with the palms of my hands red and etched, and my arms aching.

I toted valises, carry-ons, suitcases, trunks, cameras, with 2 extra lenses, cosmetics cases, and voltage converters on numerous trips. I carried loads for needy friends. I carried my baby.
I held my dying father.

My left hand helped my right hand at work; they wrote hundreds of reports together. My hands cooked together, exercised together, cleaned together.

There was no definite explanation to the elbow situation, however, acknowledging that everything is connected, my left shoulder was tense. In fact, I could begin to analyze that my left arm was compensating from years of lifting too much, and possibly carrying loads that were too big, too close to the ground, and too heavy. I kept my arm in a semi-bent position so that the detritus I was carrying wouldn’t scrape the ground.

I love the guy who owns my health food store, Neil. He’s always there, always funny, always playing cool music. After buying my usual load of vitamins, goji berries ($26 a bag for the real thing from India), alpha lipoic acid—not an hallucinogenic–he handed me a card. I had spent over $100 and was entitled to a free half hour therapeutic massage. I began collecting these vouchers, maybe 5 in all, and decided to finally check out the place that was luring me in. All the antioxidants in the world hadn’t prevented my locked elbow, so maybe it was time for a new approach. I handed one of my cards to a friend and told her we were going to get de-stressed.

I have had many massages, but all of them were performed by women; I was always a little apprehensive about a male masseur. But my free half hour convinced me that I could deal with a gorgeous young man working on my aging green tea-ed, goji berried, DMAE-ed, antioxidant- loaded self. It was an instant connection.

Looking back on the chiropractor fiasco, along a series of accupunture atrocities that made my elbow feel like it was paying for first degree murder, various physical therapy attempts that were nothing more than a hot pad and electronic massaging fingers, I was not encouraged. In fact, a doctor told me I would need surgery.

This dark-haired and eyed-angel of a man worked on my neck, my arm, my back. He stumbled over numerous knots, accupressed, massaged, stretched. He helped me to relax and breathe in the refuge of his dimly lit feng shui-ed room. The new age music infused me, fed me.

When the half hour was over, he left; I couldn’t move. I could have stayed there forever, but I pried myself off the table, collected my belongings and went back to the reception area to meet my friend. I held out my arms and did a double take. The 5° angle of my elbow appeared to have normalized. It was enough to make me want to build a cathedral on the site—and I’m Jewish.

I hugged and kissed and thanked this young man who defied my belief that this would be a life-long problem.

My friend was told by her masseur, that the creative side of the body, is the left side (right brain), and perhaps this is so. Perhaps that elbow lock was blocking years of creative energy that couldn’t flow. Perhaps there were many knots and blocks from all the tension and stress I used to carry; tension stuffed into plastic bags, school bags, shopping bags, not to mention all the baggage that is so hard to let go of.

This morning I awoke with an excruciating pain in my upper back. It was probably the area that was pressed and kneaded during the massage that released my elbow. Or maybe it’s due to the stuff I have been carrying around for years and no longer need that has been lingering in my tissues; toxic stuff; anger, resentment, frustration, exasperation. That stuff.

I think it’s time to let go.

Breathe/Anna Nalick

reply daisydo wrote on Dec 29, ’07 Massage is one of the best things we can do for our overall health and well being. I hope you continue to receive at least one a month.