When I was 23, I had just had my third and youngest child, Grey. My friend Liane Alitowski gave me a birthing gift of a massage gift certificate with the Bloomington, Indiana Massage Therapist: Kay Thorbecke. I was profoundly touched AND uncomfortable by this kind and generous gesture.
I had no point of reference nor anything in my up bringing to orient me to just happily accepting and enjoying the massage.
I almost didn't go because the whole concept was so foreign and disconcerting to me.
What propelled me to actually show up for appointment was Liane's comments on how she went regularly, how everyone needed massage, how highly she thought of said Massage Therapist and how I would be surprised by who all was a regular client.
24 years later I am sure I never thanked her adequately for what turned out to be a pivotal hour in my life. It's truly a situation I can only hope to and have strove to pay forward.
The truth is as a full time student in an honors BFA program, newly deaf, with 2 small children and a new born, precious few resources and save some fantastic friends ~ I was alone in the world, exhausted, overwhelmed, bone weary and chronically over caffeinated to just show up and be awake. I was doing way too many things ~ poorly. In remembrance its a mad blur of art, children, hunger on every level, unbalance, deep friendships that remain to this day and hope and vision and seriously getting up everyday and just winging it and hoping we all landed on our feet at the end of the day.
Hindsight tells me I was probably starving for nurturing touch.
In desperate need of grounding, care and focus.
The concept of shutting out the world and falling into an hour where the guiding principle was simply to let the cares, pains & concerns of the day slip away so that one could truly experience deep in tune relaxation, clarity and rest, was a language I had never dreamt of. This is saying something because if you know me, you know my mind is a park and my imagination is boundless and rarely still.
I arrived and waited in hall on little wooden chair in an office upstairs on the town square. I've always loved that beautiful square and for some reason this gentled me down and was comforting to me.
Kay came out and say down beside me, smiled, looked into my eyes, with hands on her thighs, did a little intake. She is a petite and pixieish woman who's first impression was kind, calm and rooted.
All qualities I have come to find very important in the people I surround myself with.
I expressed my concerns about being too big, nursing and mussing her sheets, stretch marks, and everything else under the sun. She listened but simply assured me that none of this was an issue.
She showed me the lovely water color simple room, told me where to put clothes and told me she would be right back when I was on table. I remember the sun pouring in from a high window and trying to step out of it.
Yes, I not only left on my underclothes, I sat on edge of table ON the covers.
When she came in she couldn't help but smile, and showed me to be under covers.
I closed my eyes so I would not feel like I had to interact. Mind you being newly deaf I had to idea how to be deaf, but I remember feeling my breath ragged and anxious in my chest and feeling like I was both going to suffocate and fall through the floor table and all.
She Im sure could read my distress, laid her hand on my wrist and I could feel her thus taking deep breaths slowly and deliberately. I felt myself being lulled into breathing with her. It helped my eyes be closed rather than squeezed shut.
I know now the massage I received is the basic Swedish Massage that is taught at Boulder College of Massage Therapy. At the time the marked and numbered repetitions of strokes and choreography were comforting, and helped me settle in as it became apparent what to expect. The hour both seemed to fly and to be lost in time and space and endless. When she touched my hand and told me she was stepping out of room so I could dress, I broke into tears.
Those of you who know me, know I rarely cry. Some of my children claim they have never seen me cry.
It was simply that it had been the first time in my 23 years when someone had touched me kindly.
It must be said because it is most relevant in this context, the first time I had ever been touched non-sexually and kindly. The first time I was touched in a non-invasive manner, not controlling & demanding but rather a listening and attentive touch.
My mind was racing processing it all and my heart was hammering with possibilites. I knew one thing for sure~ I wanted to learn how to do that. How to live like that. How to connect with people on that level. How to serve and care in that manner. How to move through the world that comfortable and offering that comfort to others. How to enable others to feel that safe and cared for.
Kay generously shared about her education and inclinations. Then I knew come hell or high water, one way or another, some day I was going to go to Boulder College of Massage Therapy. That did in fact happen per Kay's first and shining inspiration but the path was long and tenacious, difficult and sometimes seemed insurmountable~but that's a story for another day.
All of these years later, I Thank & Bless Liane and Kay for this gift that actually became my life and livelihood. I would say all of my positive identity in some way comes back to this.
No comments:
Post a Comment