Acupuncture Take 3

There's something that seems really indulgent about sitting still for an hour, legs elevated in a plush (leather?) recliner, lights dim, flute music circulating the sound waves of the room. It's 9:45 on a friday morning and I've discarded my socks and shoes by the door. I think, I should be working on my prospectus chapter outlines. I should be responding to student emails about their final papers. I probably shouldn't have downed those two cups of coffee after my shower, Rachel Maddow waking me up with the aftermath of Super Tuesday. I think, from here, I'll get to school do some reading before my 1:00 reading and then, hopefully, have time and energy enough this evening to finish that prospectus bibliography and a conference presentation for next week. And that I should also probably plan something for dinner.

My acupunturist asks about my week. I tell her my anxiety levels are a bit heightened, which happens to me at the end of every quarter when my colleagues sequester themselves to writing and grading and I try to resume a resemblance of a balanced schedule. Can we do anything about that? I ask, my fingers tapping beats onto the recliner arm. I think I'm trying to make the flute music into reggae. Sure. She taps three needle along my hairline. She asks about my walking. I tell her the truth--that I've been much less achey, able to move a little more this week. She nods, smiles, and taps five needles into my left hand. A few more in my feet and ankles, one in my right ear.

I glance around me, two other women and one man getting treatments. At first, I'm not sure how to hold my right hand because she has placed one single needle on the inside of that wrist. I feel my shoulder and bicep tense, a quickening of my heart, then I remember to breathe. In breathing, I consciously release my right arm muscles. As I do, my hand falls toward my torsoe, the needle, unmoved from its position in my wrist, nestles into the leather arm. I realize it, with its pinhead point, is going to work with me.

For an hour, I try to pay attention to the slight twinges and nerve firings in my body. Sometimes my mind strays. I'm beginning to understand how my chapter outlines are fitting together, how my missing link is perhaps one of my main ideas of my Masters thesis. I notice my left hip sinking into the chair and slight pinches in my left foot as it adjusts to this new balance. My body is still though I can't remember consciously stilling it.

And as I sit the needles begin their writing.