Reflections On Change And The Process Of Metamorphosis
Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself, probably like many of you, reflecting more than usual. In particular, I have thought about the different shifts and life events that have gotten me to where I am now. A large part of my identity is being an acupuncturist. It is not just my work or vocation; to me it’s a calling that infuses all aspects of my life. Reflecting on how that came to be feels relevant at this time because well, we are in a pandemic, and if there was ever a time that we are being invited (maybe forced) to re-think our orientation to everything from the work we do, healthcare, food sources, supply chain, the list goes on… it is now.
Here is my story of making my way through a different time in which I had to re-think many aspects of my life, a time when things I relied on for a sense of solidity, comfort, and normalcy crumbled.
In my 20s I was working as a designer, mostly doing men’s accessories. It was work that I had come to through a real New York sort of experience: I was a server in a restaurant talking to a regular about how I was looking for other work, and that regular saw some sort of potential and got me a job! While working as a designer, I felt a combination of having gotten really lucky and also being in the wrong place. The work didn’t leave me fulfilled and it quickly became clear to me that the idea that I would fulfill my passions outside of work hours just wasn’t feasible. There are only so many hours in a day.
A few years into working as a designer, in a kind of desperation, I decided to dedicate two weeks to attending a metalsmithing program. At that time I felt that some sort of creative expression was what I needed most. I thought that setting that time aside would regenerate my creativity and hopefully lead me toward a path of clarity and creative fulfillment. Interestingly, it did, but in a much different way than I had imagined.
On the first day of the program, the instructors presented their work. One of them began to talk about a particular piece of work and how it was made while trying to deal with the death of a friend. I wish I could remember more details about the work… I don’t remember what it looked like, or even the medium… but what I do remember is the basic narrative and how emotionally impacted I was. I remember how I couldn’t hold back my tears, how my emotional response felt kind of disproportionate. No one else in the room seemed to be losing it, why was I?
Over the next few days my heightened sensitivity continued while my vision of that couple weeks being an expansive, fulfilling, hopefully even fun time, eroded. There was the day I walked across the campus and a large green caterpillar landed on my navy and white striped shirt. Looking down at it, time seemed to stop. The caterpillar, the stripes, the grass, and sky, everything was electric. Surreal. While I might have taken that as a positive omen, a harbinger of new ideas and creative flow, what followed was not quite that. In the studio I struggled to do anything. I just froze. No ideas, none of my usual eagerness to get my hands on materials and see what might come out, no interest, really. And the paralysis continued. I felt totally out of sorts and the only reprieve came with runs through the woods. I remember talking with a friend about it on the phone while I was there. “Stop running,” he said, “what are you running from?”
I ended up cutting my time short and heading back home and back to work. I tried to orient myself to that experience in a way that made it more palatable, but was mostly sitting somewhere between feeling confused and having failed. My self-doubt deepened as shortly after getting back it became clear that the relationship I was in, a live-in partnership of three years, was on a slippery slope. He became irritable and distant, and his interests seemed to move into new directions, none of which included me. Heartbreak, loss, and of course, a change to my living situation followed. Painful, yes, but nothing compared to what would follow.
As that break-up was unraveling, the friend I had talked to on the phone about running developed quite a cough. Then his lung collapsed, which led to hospitalization to deal with the lung and figure out why it had collapsed. Was this a random thing? A spontaneous pneumothorax? That happens. But no, the biopsy determined cancer. “The cells are evil.” The lining would be removed and hopefully with it, the evil cells. Terrifying, but also maybe manageable. The surgery happened and the recovery would be slow, but the overall tone from doctors and from my friend was that it would be ok. With second opinions from experts, it was determined that there wasn’t a rush for cancer treatment. It was fall by this time and the consensus was that treatment could be put off until after the holidays. So, for a brief period things seemed almost normal, save for his once meticulous handwriting now appearing hurried and his appetite for reading, especially poetry, increasing.
Right now, as I try to recall how things took a turn, my memories become fuzzy. What I do remember is that he did begin treatment, I guess sometime in January, and shortly thereafter became very sick. He was admitted to the hospital and told that the cancer had spread everywhere. Then the phone call. I was at work, it was sometime in the afternoon. I walked out of the office and crouched down in an empty hallway to take the call. “I’m going to die. I’m worried about how my mom is going to handle this.” And then we sat there in silence for I don’t know how long.
For the next few days I waited to hear from him. Maybe I could see him, say goodbye. But within a week I got the call that he’d died.
The memorial service happened and I thought I was processing things as I should (whatever that means) but riding the subway back to my apartment afterward, I started to feel paranoid. I thought people were staring at me, that they knew things about me. Specifically I thought that they knew I was going to die, and somehow the timeline was almost immediate, or right around the corner. At first it was just an interaction here and there, but it increased, and my thoughts became totally oppressive and could be triggered by seemingly anything. Soon, I was white-knuckling through my workday just to make my way back home at the end of it where I would curl up in fetal position on my couch, just so scared. Of everything.
When it became unbearable I called my brother in the middle of the night: “Should I check myself in?” No, he thought it would be better if I head to North Carolina and stay with my family. So I did, and I struggled there, but with familiarity, unconditional love, and some otherworldly intervention. “You haven’t done what you’re called to do in this life yet,” prophesied an older woman I’d never met. I soaked it in, let my heart mend somewhat, and within a couple weeks decided I needed to get back to life. I was reaching the point where, if I was away from work longer, Human Resources would need further documentation.
My return back marked a new resolve to find more solid footing. It didn’t come immediately but my search had begun. I dove into talk therapy and somewhere along the way I found acupuncture. It wasn’t love at first sight but my first experience certainly made an impression. I don’t think my first treatment even involved needles. I showed the acupuncturist a wart on my finger that just wouldn’t go away and she proceeded to hold a sharp object (I think wood) to a flame and dig the wart out. She did bring an assistant in to stroke my hair and compliment me during the process. Nice of her.
The wart didn’t come back (great!) and I eventually found another acupuncturist with a style that resonated more (no burning sharp objects). With these treatments I started to connect with the medicine— the fine needles, pulse taking, the feeling of being integrated— and I wanted more. So, I began to read about Chinese medicine, and the more I explored the more it resonated. The Taoist notion that we are born with purpose and our life is an unfolding of that, combined with an explanation of how the physical body can manifest both the unfolding of destiny (health) as well as the impedance of our destiny (disease), provided the kind of framework that I was searching for, a way to start dealing with the big questions…purpose, mortality, loss… things that were fueling my anxiety.
As my quest for figuring out how to deal with this life unfolded, the Great Recession of 2008 was underway. I watched as several colleagues were laid off, many of whom were older, with families. Their jobs would be folded into others, and people who were paid less could be brought on to carry out tasks. It felt terrible and I wanted to move away from that culture, so I quit my job and started acupuncture school. There I began to dig deeper into the medicine. More unraveling followed as every area of my life became subject to the teachings. That which didn’t serve me would have to be dealt with, and that process continues today.
Sitting here now, with three years of schooling and eight years of practice, plus more and more loss and pain experienced, I feel equipped to sit with this pandemic, to hold space for my feelings and reactions as well as other’s. I take refuge in the medicine. There is so much uncertainty, yet peace doesn’t come with predictions or answers to our desire to know what’s going to happen, our futile impulse to control. The teaching has always been that colds and flus are Wind, and Wind brings about change. This is happening on a massive scale right now. We are seeing an attack on the Lungs, which are associated with grief. Ultimately we are taught that we have to let go of the grief and move through the loss, otherwise the Lung will be injured. We can aspire (the Lung’s virtue) to move through this time by allowing our feelings to come up, processing them, and then letting them go, like the breath that moves in, pauses, and then exhales.