It’s funny how people make up your life. If you took all the people out of it, what would it be? You can look at a really lonely person and see what it is they’re living for. They’re trying to find people, even just by sitting at the kitchen table and thinking. That’s how I am with you.
When I first met you I thought why do I have to have someone like you, someone a little awkward, a mumbling non-native speaker, a man. I wanted someone else. When you came to get me, you held the door open for me and waited for me to walk ahead of you. But I didn’t know where I was going. You had to show me. So I waited for you to go ahead.
You took me into one of the rooms and asked me everything about myself. You wrote it all down slowly and looked vaguely displeased at everything I said. My dairy intake, my yellow-green urine. My past drug use and my irregular cycle. I felt annoyed by the way you seemed to shake your head ever so slightly when I told you I had been on cortico-steroids for ten years.
You told me you would see me for a few sessions and then you would give me to someone else. That’s how you said it, in a quiet, careful voice.
“Ok, I will be seeing you a few more times. And then, I will give you to someone else.”
My next appointment was a month later because I had been away. You asked if I had had any trouble arranging time off work to come.
“No,” I said. “I just didn’t want to have one session and then go away. I’ve been on holiday.”
“Where have you been?” You asked.
“Rome.”
“Ah, Mediterranean,” you said. “And the weather?”
“Beautiful.”
You smiled a kind of painful smile. You looked at my tongue and drew a picture of it, with little dots at the tip and arrows describing its color and texture: Quite thick white coating. Red dots. Then you asked me to take off my shoes and socks and lay down on the table.
“Ok, I will leave you for five minutes,” you said.
When you came back into the room and raised the table, I was laying on my back with my hands folded across my stomach. You looked at me and smiled.
“Let’s play,” you said. I laughed politely. You looked at me.
“Do you worry?” you asked so quiet I could barely hear you.
“A little,” I said.
“Since it is only your first time, we will use just four needles,” you said.
Then you slowly pushed up my trousers, and held both my legs in turn, and felt my bones and measured distances along them with your hands. You marked points on my skin with a thin marker.
“Do you have any exercise?” you asked.
You tapped the needles in expertly so I didn’t feel them.
“Ballet twice a week,” I said.
You stood over the table and talked to me the whole time.
“Ah, ballet? I know some people who do ballet. I used to teach Tai Ch’i at a place where they had dance classes.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes. You know kind of meditating movement.” You moved your arms, palms facing each other obliquely, like you were explaining something, and arced subtly to the left. “You would be a good candidate for Tai Ch’i actually.”
“Would I?” I asked. You nodded.
“Where do you live?” you asked.
“Seven Sisters.”
“Ah, Seven Sisters! I used to live there. For five years I lived there. Now I live in Wood Green. We’re neighbours.” You smiled. “And you have been in England how long?”
“Almost five years,” I said.
“It is hard.”
“Yeah, sometimes,” I said.
“You prefer home.”
“I don’t know.”
“It is hard living in England. The English men are selfish.”
“English men are selfish?”
“Ah, I’d better be careful. Your husband is English.”
“He’s not selfish,” I said. You manipulated the needle on my left leg by my ankle.
“Do you feel that?” I felt a nervy electric feeling.
“Yes.”
“And this one?”
“Yes.” You moved past my feet to my right side and turned the needle in my wrist.
“And this one?”
“Yes.”
“And this one?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, you have a good reaction.” You were pleased.
“Where are you from?” I asked.
“Greece.”
“You must miss the sun,” I said. You nodded. “I miss seasons,” I said.
“Which part of America do you come from?”
“New York state.”
“New York?”
“State.”
“What is this, the suburbs?”
“No, well yes, but not of New York City. I grew up 150 miles north of the city. You could go 150 miles north again and still be in New York State. It’s a big state.”
“Oh,” you said. “I never knew that.”
“Most people over here don’t.”
You brought over the bio-hazard bucket and pulled the needles out carefully. I didn’t move but you stopped at my wrist.
“Did that hurt?”
“That one, a little,” I said. You held my wrist in your hand and rubbed the point briskly with you fingers.
“Better?” I nodded. You arranged my arm on the table. You rubbed each point with cold, wet cotton.
“This is to remove our tattoos from you,” you said.
After our last session, I went home and changed into my pajamas and they were all there. You had forgotten to remove the marks you had drawn on my legs and arms. I touched each point and I watched them every day as they faded from blue-black to purple-blue to the color of my skin.
When I went back to the clinic I learned that you used Lung 7 on me, which can help to release grief. I wanted to tell you how I had grieved, but you weren’t there. A woman, the one you gave me to, came to get me. She walked ahead of me. She told me she’d used Lung 7 before when someone’s cat died.
Our last appointment, you sat down and said “Maybe we can communicate better this week.” That was because you mumbled and I sometimes couldn’t understand your accent.
“What? Communicate?” I said.
“How have you been feeling?” You asked me, bent over your notes about me.
“Ok.” I said. “Kind of unmotivated.”
“And your mood?”
“Kind of low. And irritable.”
“You feel angry?” You looked at me.
“Yeah, I lose my temper.”
“With your husband?”
“Yeah.”
“You fight?”
“Yeah.”
“You feel tired?”
“Yes.”
“Mmm. This has to do with your lungs, which are very weak right now. You smoke?”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
“Occasionally marijauna.”
“Mmm. I have to tell you that this is very bad for you. It’s bad for everyone but especially for you. You need to understand how this has happened.” You looked at me. “I think your drug use, combined with your… predisposed weaknesses and the depression you have had, these have really weakened your system. And that is why you have the problems you’re having now.” You wouldn’t let me get out of your gaze. You had an earnest look that was almost a smile but worse. “So, you will need to change your lifestyle. I can help you, but if you keep smoking, it will just be three steps forward…ok? Do we have a deal?” I nodded.
When you came back in the room and I was laying on the table with my bare feet sticking out. You walked over to the side of the table.
“What are you thinking of?” You asked. “You look far away.”
“Oh,” I said. “I’m just worrying about the damage I’ve done to my body.”
“Ah,” you said. “Well your drug use, that was a bad choice. Particularly for you. But you are still very young.” Your voice was slower and quieter than ever. “Right, are you?”
I nodded because you wanted me to.
“You’re not old like me.” You smiled. “You have many more experiences, eh?” I nodded. “I haven’t said don’t bother coming again, have I?” I said no. “I’ve spent hours on your case,” you said. You looked at me. You looked out in the direction I was looking and it was quiet. Then you looked back at me. You pushed my trouser legs up slowly and searched out my points carefully.
“Good strong legs,” you said. “She’s a ballerina,” you said, rolling the R over your tongue. I smiled.
“How is the ballet going?” you asked.
“It’s good,” I said. “It’s hard.”
“We will do the same points as last week and then we will do some on your back,” you said. You marked the points on my legs and wrists and tapped the needles in with quick, controlled movements.
“Did that hurt?” You asked.
“No,” I said.
“No?” You said. “Why not?” You smiled. “Do you like your job?” You asked.
“No,” I said.
“Are you going to do something else?” You asked. I felt a line of faint buzzing from my knee to my ankle.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m going to do something else.”
On my way to work, I think about the Tao Te Ching and try to rid myself of my desires. But then I imagine how I look sitting there, thinking.
I know that I must look inside myself and find the Tao. I know that I must bend to the natural order of the universe, because it will go on whether I bend to it or not. I know that I must allow you to have come and gone like one allows the wind to enter the front door and pass out the window.
I am going to Wood Green station now and I am going to sit outside the exit, on the railing where I waited for my husband when we met for our first date. I feel sure that you take the tube. Even if you only take it occasionally, at odd times, it is the only place I can think of. There are too many people swirling around me, moving and trailing endlessly. Only if I stay still in one place can I hope to connect with your private stream of movement.
I wonder if you would shake your head at the way I am trying to force things, at the way I am seeing only manifestations and no mystery. The only mystery I see is you. The only Tao is sitting here outside the station and scanning the faces, unmoving, contemplating you and how you have changed my life.
c. 2004
© RMT, 2009
