Blocked meridians

Last week I had a deep-tissue massage with Natasha, my Russian massage therapist.

For those of you who have heard me talk about Natasha, you already know that she is equipped with hands of steel and a baffling ability to kick-start my digestive system. (If you have no idea who Natasha is, read THIS. Then you’ll understand what she means to me.)

Even though I adore Natasha and entrust my body to her, I do not look forward to our sessions. I equate getting a massage from her to running a 10K: I sort of dread it, but I know I’ll feel euphoric and resilient once it’s over. It will somehow make me a better human being.

Every time I have an appointment with Natasha, she flattens me into a pancake with her Eastern-medicine techniques, but I accept her poundings without a whimper. In fact, it’s become a point of pride that I manage to avoid crying out in agony when I’m with her. I have learned to rely on deep breathing and other mental trickery to stay calm and contain the wailing inside my own head.

But last week, my visit to Natasha was different. My muscles seemed tighter than usual; I felt edgy. She noticed too, and was thus “going easy” on me. (Which, let’s be frank, means nothing.) When she got to my foot – the back of my left ankle – I almost jumped out of my skin. It hurt so bad. (Later, after my massage, I checked out the big anatomy chart hanging on her wall and wondered if my Calcaneal Tendon or Flexor Retinaculum was perhaps the culprit.)

How could the back of my ankle be sore? It hadn’t bothered me before, but that is precisely Natasha’s forte: she locates tender, raw, uncomfortable places on your body that you didn’t even know existed and makes them feel like spaghetti. I found myself groaning out loud, “Natasha, I can’t do it! I can’t.”

She relented – a little. She kept her magical man hands on the back of my ankle but released some of the pressure.

“What is wrong with me?” I moaned.

“It’s your heart,” she said.

“What is wrong with my heart?” I cried. Natasha has a track record of diagnosing health problems through massage, so my first thought was that I was maybe having angina or the rumblings of a heart attack.

“No, not your heart,” said Natasha. “Your emotional heart. You have pent-up feelings. You have tension. Your meridian is blocked at the back of your ankle. Your foot and heart are connected. Energy cannot get through.”

I really didn’t know what this meant, nor was I able to engage in intelligent conversation while sprawled on the massage table, so I shut my mouth and let her proceed. The discomfort in the back of my foot was a tangible thing.

“Yes, yes, you definitely have a blocked meridian,” she whispered. My eyes were closed, but I could imagine her shaking her head in doleful solidarity. “I will unblock it.” Which she did by kneading her fingers into the molten core of my blocked meridian and sending a hot thread of pain up my leg and into the upper half of my body. I felt something burning; I felt something begin to give. And then, as I was practically panting, she stopped.  

Before I could catch my breath, Natasha moved swiftly from my left ankle to my right. Which – no surprise here! – likewise needed unblocking. She repeated the entire procedure, while my palms grew damp and I licked the sweat from my upper lip. Just when I thought I might physically break, Natasha began to murmur, “It is hard, being a mother. It is hard, being a woman. You feel love for others and you take care of them, and it is not always easy. There is stress.”  

Oh yes, Natasha, there is stress.

“There is worry, there is frustration, there is anger,” she continued. “And it goes into your foot and stops your energy from flowing.”

Her voice, a thick Russian-y intonation, made my eyes leak. How does she always reduce me to weeping? And how does she so beautifully unblock my meridians when I’m pretty sure that her own meridians must be suffering? After all, this is someone who’s gone through a nasty divorce and has a son with a brain tumor. If anyone is dealing with more than her share of sorrows and burdens, it’s her.      

But, now that I’ve given it more thought, I believe all of us women are carrying more than we ever thought we could handle, whether as moms or wives or friends or just as people. There’s hardly time for tears or woe; we forge on, even if our loads are heavy. Maybe our blocked meridians are the glue that prevents us from completely falling apart. Maybe they are the small price we pay for being alive and being needed by others. Maybe blocked meridians aren’t so bad after all?

But I will say this: it feels freaking amazing to have them cleared out, even if it’s only for an hour or two.

Thanks, Natasha. I love you.