Therapy

Just about a year ago, as Saturn approached the ascendant, the ligaments of my lower back and sacro-iliac joints gave up the ghost. The centre, literally, could no longer hold. Displacement, severe muscle spasm and weakness and flare ups of acute inflamation and pain. Since then a repeat prescription for cocodamol, a round of alternative and conventional medical treatments and far too much TV.

It's dawning on me that the job is to rebuild the centre - and what is more central than the pelvis and lower back, and what they represent? Or rather to give it space to do the rebuilding. I imagined my centre could look after itself while I led a busy life but apparently this was not the case. Maybe this was the only way to get my attention. After much inner resistance I am revisiting relaxation and meditation techniques.

Six weeks ago I ventured outside again. Ten yards and back home, fifteen the following day, then twenty. Today I reached the next street up from mine. The first goal is to reach the river. At a guess, I'm just just under halfway there. The strangest feeling, learning to walk again. Each time I go out, a mixture of pleasure mixed with terror lest there is a setback. Learning to trust this body that, seemingly, has turned against me for a season.

For the first time for a long while I hanker after the scent of essential oils. Lavender scented body lotion, orange and ginger shower gel. The physical as a source of peace and pleasure.

A desire as well to get creative. Photographs. Blogging.

About the same time as the back went, the computer hard drive died, and with it my stock of photographs. Right now I'm using a friend's PC, loaned on approval. No photography programmes so no new photos.

But thank god for Flickr. I'll be reviewing my on line stockpile and posting some of them here from time to time - at least for as long as the back stability lasts.

Therapy, you might call it.

Next Thing

It takes being sick, if only for a few days, to remind me how healthy I generally am, and thus how fortunate. I can't remember the last time I was off work due to illness. It hasn't always been like this.

I've had to leave some time-critical job tasks undone, which I'm fretting over. I'll probably go in tomorrow for a couple of hours, just to clear them. In any event it always comes back to doing the next thing, slowly and gently.

Trying to let go. Being open to - praying for would be more accurate - a change in perception.

Timing

The massage therapist, F, has discovered the cause of the shoulder problem. Tight pectorals. Those of you who read Dale's blog will know that he addressed this condition recently and I'm here to tell you that he was spot on. The pain is in the right upper quadrant of the back, spreading over the shoulder to the right arm. The range of movement of this arm was becoming increasingly limited and I was getting far too accustomed to permanent discomfort.

Lo and behold the pectoral muscles on my right side are contracted and as tight as piano wire. At the end of an excruciating but wonderful session I sit on the couch, legs dangling, wrapped in thick white towels. F kneels behind me and pushes his knee into my thoracic area at the same time pulling the shoulders. This is how you need to sit, he says. Keep those shoulders back. Do yoga. Do the Camel. The Locust. When you are standing, don't fold your arms in front of you. Give yourself regular massages where the pectoral muscle joins the sternum. And I always thought I had good posture.

Deep tissue massage with a male therapist seemed the path to take because I sensed the problem needed some heavy-duty physical work. F is good. He looks to be in his thirties, a bit shorter than me, chunky. In addition to skill and strength he possesses the gift of making his female clients feel safe. Open and friendly but everything strictly appropriate. There's more work to be done, and possibly some ultrasound, but I am encouraged.

Of course there are twinges of guilt and even shame to go along with the physical ache: this shouldn't be happening to me as an (occasional) massage practitioner. I shouldn't have been this neglectful of my own body. Oh well. But it has to be admitted, an unbeatable way to understand in depth the working of the individual muscles is to develop a problem or two yourself. A gold standard Anatomy & Physiology refresher course, you could say.

The title of Dale's post also strikes me as significant. Opening the heartspace.

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The sun is high in the sky: the golden days of summer are here.

Energy

Half way through the yoga class Susanna talks us through the Padma Mudra. We kneel, palms facing the floor, wrist against wrist, fingers hanging downwards.

“The roots of the lotus flower”, says Susanna, “reaching deep into the mud.” We press our wrists together.

We reverse the position, drawing the hands through. The fingers point heavenwards, thumbs and little fingers of both hands touching, the remaining fingers forming a flower shape. Susanna guides us into a short meditation on the lotus in full bloom.

The silence and the simple grace of the mudra are powerful.

The class continues. Cobra. Camel. Resting Locust. Spinal twist. Corpse posture. The breathwork the string holding the beads together. Time to go home. My right shoulder still twinges but for the first time in many days I am calm and my body is temporarily at peace. This calls for celebration: long-stemmed yellow lilies and a taxi instead of the bus.

The young woman driver is dark and wiry and has an accent.

“Are you Polish?”, I ask.

“No” she replies, “Brazilian.”

She tells her story. A failed marriage to a Brit whom she had met in Brazil. Three years ago they parted but by now she has a young son.She decides to stay in England: this is the only country that her boy has ever known. She works in a supermarket then decides she needs more flexibility, so goes into the taxi business.The last time she saw her family in South America was seven years ago.

At a red traffic light she spots an English friend. Leaning forward over the steering wheel she waves animatedly.

"When I was a child in Brazil I never imagined my life would be like this", she says without self pity. A simple statement of fact. She didn't sound unhappy. Not at all.

Change of Pace

My right shoulder and upper back are in a bad way. Muscle spasm and it's getting worse. Pain has started to spread down the right arm as well.

"Not more than 20 minutes at the computer without a correspondingly long break", said the nice young man who is my new remedial massage therapist yesterday.

Which means that habits will have to change. It's not work that's doing the damage. I have frequent breaks from the computer and am more than happy to take them. It's blogging, blog reading and generally surfing the net at home.

When I'm writing a blogpost I go at the first and second draft for an hour, maybe more, without moving. Then maybe a few hours, maybe a day later I might revise for another hour. If I posted the first draft you wouldn't understand a word. Neither would I. I'm not a naturally fast or ordered thinker or writer and the drafting and editing become part of the thinking process. I lose myself, my sense of awareness. in the whole deeply enjoyable, compulsive exercise. Only on closing the lid of the laptop after a marathon session do I realise that my body has been suffering. And I haven't even mentioned the lengthy delights of a wet afternoon's blog reading.

Not good. The rules of health aren't any different for me than for the rest of humanity.

At least for a while until things improve physically I'm going to experiment with shorter posts, so that I'm not fretting to get back to the computer and finish the project. I've started to investigate blogs that make a feature of brevity and it will be an interesting change of pace. More stand-alone photographs. Maybe some link posts. Blog reading for limited times only.

I'm alarmed that I've allowed things to get to this stage, in spite of regular yoga classes. I know this stuff, for heaven's sake. There's nothing new in what the massage therapist said. And yet I enjoy my online life and don't want to give it up. I need a special back chair. I need to set gentle limits. I need to get well and to treat my body kindly.