TACO

Tucson Acupuncture Co-op

I went for an appointment today. Yesterday was a market day and Ashton worked with me. I felt much better than the first week we worked together.

First the acupuncture because it's on my mind as my digestion strains all the lettuce I put into it through and squeezes ever last ounce out. I'm oil pulling at the moment. WIth charcoal to whiten my teeth. I don't know if that is true, that it whitens my teeth, but I like the taste, the feeling of the grit between my teeth as I bite down. It's like chewing on sand for an extended period of time, through a coconut flavored watery liquid. It does cause me to want to swallow, but I kinda like the feeling and it feels very clean. In a few moments I'll be going out to the pool to lounge and kick my feet because I like doing that after I eat. It helps my stomach I feel.

Anyways, the acupuncture. I felt very wary, very afraid. I was so scared every time I went into Jeremy's that I would have to be better than last week, or worse, or something should've changed, and nothing ever did. Except that I liked him still. Thankfully that wasn't able to happen with this guy. His shaved head, ending up at the brow line and turning into a curly mess at the top, his ungaged ears, sweet eyes that were a bit folded into his head, his tattoos, his muscular yet slight body, all made me feel at ease. He seemed gay, and if not gay, pretty effeminate. He said he had been a massage therapist, an ayurvedic specialist and some other things, and that he had a mountain of debt for the next 25 years that he would be paying off in small installments if he lived comfortably but small. He'd moved from Boulder, Colorado, and said he'd been there just a few weeks ago. I told him I craved the air there, the mountains and the trees. He said his friend had apologized for the heat, and that he had responded, no, this is so nice. 85 degrees is nothing compared with 108. This whole next week will be killer warm, hopefully with some rain to break off the monotony of dry furnace.

I told him I'd had a background of amenorrhea, mold exposure, and wanted to work on digestion. He said ok. He looked slightly empathetic/concerned, his brow creasing and his eyes moving toward me from looking at my sheet of paper. I don't think he had wanted to read those words, or at least he hadn't focused on them, because when I said I had had an eating disorder he checked again saying, oh, ok, ok. That's tough. And I nodded and said I was just working with my body and hoping it would come back. I felt very honest.

He told me about how he did Ashtanga yoga with Leslie at The Movement Shala, and I really enjoyed hearing about the ritual of 6-9am, people coming in whenever they wanted to, and how he anchored himself around that. How it had sort of saved his life. I completely understand. I can't wait to go back and meet Ellen and see what she might have to do as far as points. He put in probably 15 in all, around my body, and I noticed he put some on ST meridian, SJ, and I really liked that ones that he put at the top of my head as well as at the crook in my arm. I enjoyed the ease of the chair, having no one there with me was very nice, seeing as it was a Monday morning I was surprised people weren't lined up to get some Monday Qi going.

I sat in the chair next to the radio with a soft, plush, royal purple throw over the lounger. It was amazing. I dozed for about a half hour and then he came back in, pulled the needles, and only one of them rose a little into an itchy bump, on my left outer leg around the knee area. I'll have to look up the point's name. I glimpsed Ellen, the other acupuncturist, on my way out. Feeling more at ease I let the little girl slide through my awareness, her sort of Hello I'm here attitude was cute and very healthy, as if she has received acupuncture since she was little. An old couple came in as I was leaving. I held the door open as she hobbled in with her rolling walker, the man following behind nodding and saying thank you. She was just barely cognizant of what was going on around her.

Ok, so the market quickly. Ashton explained to me a little bit of how she was continually on the cops' radar when she lived with her mom so she moved out when she was 15. She got in a car accident when she was 17 and had to have facial reconstructive surgery to change her face. I saw her face in a totally different light. Clayton came over and I saw him completely differently as well, his kind eyes showing through instead of me seeing just the fear and objectionable tone of his manner.

It was more fun working with her. I held out a juice to her, her whole morning spent without food, and was so happy to offer her something I knew would nourish her. I love doing that for people and I hope that translates into my job. Now if I could just get my brain to accept my over-muscular arms and manly frame. I still feel like a man, as my hips grow it actually becomes worse. I feel MORE exposed as something that I don't want to be. Just bigger in general equals less in control of my image. And yet I have most demonstratively found that control of my image leads to absolutely nothing, and then I just feel fabricated, bored, and and still misunderstood. So I suppose I have learned that about myself and can move on hopefully.

The older black man with a graying, closely groomed beard has just arrived back in his dark blue, shiny Nissan Altima, yellow collared shirt and leather sandals. He carries a briefcase. I'm not sure what he does, but it's something important I believe. The apartment buildings two steps down the road are about to be finished. I am a little scared as to what that might mean for this area, the people that might come. I feel like Tucson is expanding beyond it's capacity and soon we'll just have to move out further to feel away.

Who knows.