Eyes closed. Face down. This time I’m on the ground. Not positioned mid-air, waist-high on a cushioned table. That green padding, soft cream sheet smelling like om. Gongs, chimes, a soundtrack; cymbals signaling it’s time. Begin. All that is the same. But not the placement, not the floor, a towel now cradling my face, a soft mattress of sorts holding my weight.

Drea knows my body. Its knots and strains, the kinks and tugs that a life made of too much movement—physical labor I’m paid to perform; resume full of action, activity, physicality—impresses on me. She knows deeper, too. Lymph nodes and chakras. Energy, chi. The ancient art of intentional touch.

Eyes closed. Face down. Her hands welcome my body into this experience. A shushing of nerves as palms shimmer down my spine, my flesh that blankets tendons, muscles. I relax into her touch, exhale with the sense of hands pressing, kneading knots. I need this work. Need that sensation of a palm’s edge—or perhaps that’s an elbow now—excavating something out of my overworked calf.

With eyes closed, I explore the darkness behind them. Sink into the sensation of her intention. Visuals create themselves with nothing else to see. Imagining those hands, the fingers a part of them, as my mind drifts into how her body is healing mine—knowing that my soleus muscle is soon to be freed of its strain. Drea’s strength does something to me. A melding of hands into the deep. A hard, circular weight pressing into a pressure point. I let go with each finger’s surge.

And with eyes closed, senses focused on touch and chimes and gongs and the scent of an oil that must, in some way, be essential—realization comes. That’s not a palm’s edge. Not an elbow.

I think it’s a toe. Yes, eyes closed, I feel one toe, then another, then a crimp of them and a curling that leads to a heel pressed in me. It’s Drea’s full extremities, each limb now wholly on me, her ligaments elongating to do what I’ve come here for her to do—help me heal. I just wasn’t expecting a toe.

These eyes are still closed, lids locked and yet I can see her unfolding around me. Perceive each toe’s caress. I understand now why the floor. Why the table isn’t used this time. Why a toe, a knee, even her shin must do this work on me. Because here is the moment, the position, of bodies intersecting. Where her whole physical form moves precisely, specifically with practice and training in movement and healing to get something in this still, prone, toe-impressed body—eyes closed, senses sharp—to let go.

       Two bodies working together; an hour’s worth of release.
       A gong. A chime. A cymbal indicating it’s time.
       “Okay, Chelsey. You can open your eyes when you’re ready.”
       Head turned, I see her now, Drea, lotus-position on the ground beside me.
       Our bodies now separate, injury exhaled.

 

Chelsey Clammer is the award-winning author of the essay collections Human Heartbeat Detected (Red Hen Press, 2022), Circadian (Red Hen Press, 2017), and BodyHome (Hopewell Publications, 2015). Her work appears in Salon, The Rumpus, Brevity, and McSweeney’s, among others. She teaches online writing classes with Women On Writing and is a freelance editor. www.chelseyclammer.com