legwork

A classmate shared that after lab yesterday she went to a therapist who specializes in work with the pelvic floor. It's an area of interest for her as yogini, woman, and mother, and fitting that her session followed our classroom discussion of the female genitalia. As she described the intensity of the work, a wave of nausea and overwhelm caught me off guard. It's familiar, and it also hasn't happened in a long time. I mentally checked out and in and out and in of the circle shortly thereafter, and for the first time got a bit weary of the conversation being had.

Muscle fluffing, day two. Simple enough, it seemed, as I began at Rose's belly to scoop and slide my fingerpads down the posterior side of rectus all the way to the pubis, feeling the soft peritoneum on the backside of my hand. Fluffing the external obliques from internal obliques from transverse abdominus, making my way not-so-artfully around her hernia at the linea alba superior to her belly button. I've been hanging with her torso a lot, leaving her arms to the others, and all but ignoring her lower extremities since the first incision I made in the skin of her right thigh.

After lunch we turn our ladies and gents over and watch a demo of fluffing the hamstrings, and I take a break, and a seat, to watch on one of the screens. Except I'm not really watching. I'm sitting away from others and I even have my phone out, pissing around with it for no reason in particular when we're not even supposed to be using them in the lab. The words he's saying and the images on the screen and the other noises in the room and the thoughts in my head all blend together and it's like a weird dream sequence that I'd have a hard time recollecting in detail later. Nothing is clear or memorable, except that I'm absolutely avoiding something. I'm sure what he's saying is inspiring and important and none of that matters, and I shame myself for half a second for wasting the opportunity to really listen and watch and learn. But this is all I'm capable of in the moment.

Anna's Legs,  Ephraim  Rubenstein, 2004

So when I go back to the table I pretend to face my discomfort by heading straight to her left posterior thigh to begin fluffing, melting the filmy fascia between the muscles. I have no idea what I'm doing and I can't remember anything about the muscles I'm working with. My mind is fuzzy and blank and spacey and I'm manhandling her with so little care and such disconnectedness it's hard to admit. Like it's just meat. It looks like a complete mess to me, and I'm about ready to give up when Gil comes over and begins talking about the glutes on the opposite side and other things I can't remember and didn't pay attention to. Because I couldn't. And I have absolutely nothing to say. Nothing intelligent or insightful or curious or revealing or funny or even honest. Because I'm mostly not even there.

I take refuge in the torso again, liberating the left lat and trap, until something takes me to the calf. I'm not doing myself any good by avoiding it, so I start to work with it, more carefully and more slowly than the hamstrings. It's so uncomfortable and upsetting and no one is noticing. I'm silent and looking downward and my eyes are so full of tears that I'm only feeling my way through tissue. I'm trying to stay with it, and I don't want to say anything, and I keep hearing myself say in my head, "I have a hard time with legs." And there's no one to say that to. 

On autopilot I drop my tools on the tray on our prep table and go sit on the far side of the lab, forehead in my fingertips to gain composure but not wanting to leave the space. But the waves come, and come, and come and I'm taking off my lab coat and heading to the door to the hallway to the bathroom to the last stall so I can cry, until I'm able to go gather my things. What the fuck. Why did it take the muscle layer to bring this out. I kind of just want to sit in the lab for a while, just to be in the space, but it doesn't feel like that's able to happen. I leave for the day, walk to the park and hunch over numb as I sit in the grass. I hear the parrots, and I think of Uly. And I get up and walk again, wishing my legs didn't have to be a part of the walk.