now we're talking

I went to see another craniosacral therapist today, and had a totally different experience this go-round. The main difference was that I cried for an hour and a half. I haven't done that in a very, very long time. And even when she seemed to be "getting" things that weren't accurate, or that didn't resonate with me, I could forgive this person. I believed that she was listening more to my body than to her own mind.

So when she thought that maybe my dad was the quiet one and my mom was rambunctious and high-spirited, well, I just corrected her. And when she said there was something about someone named Katharine, well, I thought maybe someday there will be. A Japanese town? No, not really.

It was enough to have found my sorrow, hidden in my body.

All my life, whenever I am asked in this or that workshop to go to my "safe place," I try out various serene spots on my mind's globe. Acadia, maybe, with its crashing waves and windblown pines. Something creepy always happens, and I have to move to another place in my mind. Maybe some dunes, but then the sand gets blown about in a threatening way. Let's try a lake. That I can hold for awhile, but I keep moving to various lakes in my memory, and have just settled myself on the right rock when the guided visualization is over.

This time I knew immediately that the true safe place was at the big, round dining room table of my childhood, a refuge that predates clear memories. I was surrounded by family -- the one of origin and that which I parent. The therapist's hands were under my back or head and she felt when I was at the table and when I wandered away.

I also found myself sitting in the maple tree that El and I climbed nearly daily as kids -- she and I had our own branches, rooms in an imaginary house. I sat there and felt whole and safe. I had my red Keds on. I could see the flat laces, the tips worn off, brownish gray with dirt. I could hoist myself onto a branch with little effort. My strength matched the weight of my body, something I'm afraid is no longer true.
And I found myself in the alfalfa field near our house. I pressed down a large enough patch to give me a clear glimpse of the blue sky, but I was hidden from view unless you stood directly over where I lay. I had a stalk of alfalfa or maybe timothy in my mouth. By this point my ears had filled up with tears, and the overage was pouring onto the table.

She said my parents had some journals that they wanted me to safeguard. Lee and El are actually moving my parents' journals and sketchbooks this weekend. She said my mom wanted her to touch my face, so she did, very gently. All of this I could write about in a very funny entry if it hadn't made me so sad.

She could feel that the chemo has jammed my nervous system into overdrive, and wondered if sleep was hard to come by. Now this could be said of any menopausal woman in her mid-50s, I imagine. But as I lay there, I had such an overwhelming awareness of the toll that the past two years has taken on my body. I felt more compassion for myself than frustration with my limitations. This was new.

The sadness isn't cleared, I know. But I found it, and now my peaceful self can comfort my sad self around the dining room table, on the lowest right branch of the maple tree, or lying on my back hidden by the tall alfalfa. Now we can fix this together.