The pain in my head melted everything else into a cloud of confusion, but I needed groceries. It was Saturday, a day I always picture as a carefree jaunt to the farmers’ market or whatever else is going on in town, a day when I’ll clean house while listening to “Car Talk” on NPR, play a little music, and write only if I feel like it. In truth, it usually gets bogged down somewhere along the line. I have obligations, sometimes playing a 5:30 Mass or a funeral, sometimes Nye Beach Writers. One of my blogs needs posting, Annie needs a walk, the sheets need changing, and the fridge is down to a wedge of brown cauliflower, a hunk of cheese and two slices of nine-grain bread.
I live alone. I don’t have time to have the vapors, or a migraine headache. I hear tell people go to bed with these things, but I generally try to ignore them. First stop: the post office to pick up my daily dose of charity solicitations and bills. Next I had planned to visit an open house being held by an outfit calling themselves “Healing HeArts” (spelled just like that). A blend of yoga, massage, acupuncture and counseling, they occupy a section of the professional building on 111 SE Douglas Street where my dentist used to be. I’ve been missing my old yoga class, so I decided to check it out despite my hurting head and queasy stomach. Maybe I could get a massage or do a little yoga. I wore my stretchy pants, just in case.
Balloons. New Age guitar music. A slip of paper to get signed by each practitioner and entered into a drawing for a prize. Hallways crowded with people. Cheese and crackers. Fruit. Tiny rooms with massage tables. Candles. Self-help books. An energetic young woman named Holly in a tiny wooden-floored yoga studio where she offers one-on-one therapeutic yoga sessions. A friend from church who is starting a new therapy practice. After years in hospice care, she radiated happiness. A cozy room where an acupuncturist handed out little boxes of herbal throat lozenges which I later discovered contain loquat and butterfly wings. Butterfly wings?
Walking around in a fog, I wished one of these cheerful practitioners would fix my head, but this was purely a social day. No demos. I hope I didn’t look as spaced-out as I felt. I hope I win the raffle and get a free session with one or all of these kind ladies. I hope I never have another migraine like that. Two days later, my head is still sore.
From Healing HeArts, I took my headache and queasy stomach to the grocery store, stocked up, paid up, and went home to listen to “A Prairie Home Companion” on the sofa with Annie in my lap. The dog cure. That’s my kind of therapy.
Have a headache-free week.
Unleashed in Oregon 