I’m exhausted as I walk through the door. It’s only 8:30am and I have no idea how I will make it through three classes and five hours of volunteer work that’s supposed to follow my appointment.
I get out of the tiny elevator on the eleventh floor and walk down the long, windy corridor in search of the suite number. Even though I can tell the door is not locked, I knock and a voice tells me to walk right in, so I do. As I make my way down a shorter corridor I marvel at the sense of liberty I get from the high ceilings. I should move down to SoHo, I think.
She’s not like I expected at all. I don’t really know what I was expecting, but I do know this is not it. She appears to be in her twenties, American, tall, thin, and pretty. She’s wearing fashionable frames. She’s nice but not in a touchy-feely way. She’s not fake either. Genuine niceness, such a rare quality these days.
I sit at her desk and notice the small glass ball filled with water. Tiny, red fish swim in it. “Do they really live without having their water changed?” I ask.
“Yes, it’s an entire ecosystem in there,” she says. “I didn’t believe it when I saw it either but they live like that for six years.” That’s an eternity for fish, in my experience. I smile at the beauty and complexity of nature and survival.
Japanese and Chinese characters cover most of the decoration. For a second, I wish I were still in Japan and then I remember how lonely I was and how sick I’ve been and I feel glad to be home.
She asks me questions about my medical history and lifestyle. As always, the word “stress” comes up more often than it should. I tell her that I’ve come to accept that I like living on stress and she nods. I don’t even bother to imagine what she must be thinking. I can’t be the only weirdo she’s ever seen; we do live in New York City after all.
She makes me stick out my tongue and checks my pulse on both hands simultaneously. She then takes me to a small room, containing only a chair and a massage table. She tells me to take of my socks and pants and lie on my stomach. As she sticks the needles in my body, she warns me about the small pinch. In some cases, my body jerks involuntarily. It’s not really painful but I can certainly feel most of the needles in my body.
She leaves me be for a few minutes and then comes back to take them out. She mentions that I might feel elevated pain or numbness and that it’s normal for the first time. We make an appointment to see each other again on Monday and I walk away, worrying about the pain that’s still shooting up and down my leg.
I run to the corner of the street and jump in a cab, away from the calm of her suite to the madness that is my life.
Previously? Knowing the Future.
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