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.

Herb Garden

Lemon balm. A recent gift. I made my first tisane from the leaves the other day. A light, lemony flavour. It won't replace coffee but very pleasant.


Valerian - flower detail. About five feet high as of this morning and growing. For medicinal purposes you'd need to use the root.


Nettle. A so-called weed that grew under the fence from the neighbour's garden. Next year - nettle soup. (This link is particularly good. It seems I've just missed Be Nice to Nettles Week but I think I'm obeying the spirit of it).



Chive. The flower can be used in salads. For me, a bit too much like eating a work of art ....

I'm starting to love my garden, to be excited about it, much more than I ever thought would be the case. To be surprised that the majority of these these plants will grow and flourish in spite of my ignorance and lack of skill. The ones that don't I learn from.

Consider the lilies indeed.

Risk

I've been mulling over Tarakuanyin's recent post
which eloquently puts into words much of my own thoughts and feelings about blogs and blogging.

My favourite bloggers have a common thread: a degree of self-revelation. They are personal bloggers. They communicate in prose and poetry and pictures. They write about places they have visited. They write about their passions, their loves, their children and their childhood, their interests, their joys, and a connection is forged. They sometimes post pictures of the intricate and beautiful things they have made. Perhaps they write about their politics. It doesn't matter to me whether they are "good" writers. What is a good writer anyway? From heart and mind to heart and mind and my online world becomes a larger yet more intimate place. They may write about more general topics as well, and I'm glad to read these posts, but I'm not sure I'd be visiting the blogs regularly without the personal.

Having said that, although I would class myself as a personal blogger I'm finding it difficult currently to blog about myself in any great depth. At one time I was far more open in cyberspace but now there are draft posts galore where I've opened my heart and where I hold back from pressing the Publish button. Some of it is a desire to remain anonymous. I can't resist posting about the area I live in - so much is new (to me) and fills me with joy and pleasure to the point that I want to share it in words and pictures - but I shy away from self-revealing in case an acquaintance hereabouts homes in on a give-away detail. I think about boundaries and this gives me more reason to pause.

So. I don't tell you about the therapy that is helping unclog the metaphorical passages nor the man I am attracted to (but I'm not sure how much he's attracted to me. Watch this space.) I don't write about loneliness or fear. I don't write about about my concern over what we are doing to the planet to the point where I blank out a lot of the news that I read. I don't tell you about the bad habits and compulsions. I don't tell you how badly I missed my father, even when he was alive and present. I pride myself on seeking harmony and beauty so I won't write about my dark side nor about my laziness. I don't tell you about my spiritual life and the unreasonable conviction that in spite of everything the future holds love, the daily new beginnings that I make, how my life is a series of moment by moment new beginings. I don't write about the mystery of the early mornings, and today's early morning in particular, and how privileged I can feel at times to be alive in the here and now.

Except I just have. This is the best I can do.

Lost

Bank Holiday rain. In torrents.

Undaunted on Sunday S drives over in her trusty white van and we head off towards the border with the general idea of visiting the Knights Templar Church at Garway, a first for us both. We never made it. It would have been helpful if I'd thought to bring the Ordnance Survey map. Even more helpful if the local signposting were less eccentric. The skies are heavy, the hills shrouded in rain and mist and the windscreen wipers work overtime.

Once off the main road we navigate narrow lanes bordered by high hedges and crane our necks at T-junctions. Occasionally we pass an isolated farm. No churches. Now and again we get out of the van briefly to look around. Nothing but fields, dripping trees, pure air and ecstatic birdsong.

I think of the documentary of the life of Annie Liebovitz, the photographer, I'd caught a few days previously. She describes her childhood as an airforce brat, the driving from one air base to to a new one by car. How for her the landscape became an endless series of pictures, all framed by the car window. It's a bit like that.

Some of the things S and I talk about during our search:

Friendship; a mutual friend; living alone; gardening; maps; directions; vitamin supplements; pyramid selling; cults; loneliness; a weekend away we've planned in September; men; money; peak oil; electric bicycles; hybrid cars; my latent codependency in relationships; her irritability; my mother; therapy; Mars conjunct Mercury in Scorpio; the place I work; her boss; a former boss; the place we used to work; vegetarianism; where we might get a meal.

We end up in an old pub for Sunday lunch with no vegetarian options and hunting prints and stuffed animals on the walls. Still raining but neither of us are bothered, we're just enjoying each other's company. She's buying, I leave the tip.

I value my friends, now more than ever.



A sign on the wall of a house, passed en route.

Thoughts

Click to enlarge.

A photograph taken this week on the regular morning walk/commute. It's amazing I make it to work at all these days.

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Two male blackbirds perched a hundred yards apart, sing out piercingly beautiful warnings to each other. Stay away. Stay away.

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The electrician in the office takes his time, working steadily and methodically. He pauses for a moment to chat and asks about plans for the weekend. I stop what I am doing to reply. There's no hurry.

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V, wearing a green jacket to go with her Irish lilt, brings me an armful of flowers from the farmers' market as a birthday surprise. I'd mentioned to her in passing a few days ago how much I liked that particular flower stall. Unkempt and wonderfully imperfect blossoms, redolent of another era, so different from the tidy bouquets in the florists. The tansies and cornflowers - and many others whose names I don't know - in my bunch are plucked in local gardens and tied together with thick, rough string. As best I can, I thank her.

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J's eyes are exactly the same shade of dark brown as mine. It's unsettlingly like looking at a male twin. Previously I've been attracted by opposites: men with blue, or grey, or green eyes, the colours of the sea.

I doubt anything will come of it.

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.