I’ve been doing energy work. Cranial Sacral Therapy. I started doing it because of 8, which was the last book I loved.
Sometimes I think of getting a tattoo of the number 8 because of the book and because of Elliott Smith’s cover and because sometimes I think those things mean something to me.
* * *
I lay on the table and I had the feeling this is exactly where I need to be. In the upstairs room of a yoga studio on Hillhurst Avenue with a woman who says, Zoe, can I touch your heart right now? I open my eyes and say yes. I close them and she puts her hand on my heart and who can say what happens except me.
I could tell you, I could tell you. But here I am writing on a blog, already leaving a lot of what matters out. I leave it out and hope to put it in somewhere better. A chapbook, a story, a memoir in little tiny pieces. A memoir about my body-all the different parts and memories stored in them and how I experience time.
She tells me parts of my body are shut down and I ask her which parts and they all make sense to me except when she says my heart. My heart is shut down. She says it’s like I have armory around my heart. That doesn’t make sense to me.
At night, on the way to a party downtown, I tell my friend and she says that is exactly how she would describe my heart and she is thinking of my romantic relationships.
You think you have a big heart just because you’re nice and like most people, even if X, Y, and Z and you’re understanding, you listen. People say, You’re a little crazy but you’re one of the nicest people they know. Never mind that all the while you maintain your distance, never mind that you don’t let anyone in. You spend time with men and all the time you’re thinking you’re late to leave. You keep lying, you keep wanting to leave, you keep wanting it not to work out. Out of habit.
* * *
On the table, at the end of the session, I felt something start to release and the something was some sort of energy and it was black and it felt like something dead leaving my body. It was strange to close my eyes and feel this death like energy release through my body. It was strange because I have stored that deathlike energy in me without my knowing, for who knows how long. Maybe centuries. Maybe it was passed down from my mother, maybe her mother passed it down to her. This is how the body experiences time.
After the session, she gave me a few moments on the table and I just lay there with my eyes closed and my body started to shake and I cried, a little, which is something I never really do anymore.
An hour or two after the session, I was at work and everything literally seemed brighter. Colors. And I was telling someone at work. She said, Does it feel good? It’s not that it felt good or it felt bad. It felt like a layer of myself was removed and what I felt was vulnerable.
