Qi Matrix & The G.I. Tract
Episode 05:29:2023 - Prompt: Sensation
Where Sensation took me…
I first thought of the sensation of having my heart medically stopped.
It’s cliché to liken the feeling to the weight of an elephant’s foot on my chest, but that’s what it felt like until the rhythm restored and the pressure lifted.
Then my mind took me to one of my favorite subjects: POOP.
I must have been old enough to know I needed changing the day my diaper dropped.
My parents were entertaining guests, I remember.
I must have been sleeping in my bed and woke in need...
I waddled down the first flight of stairs to the landing, which was like a stage above the living room. As I stood there, alone, watching the grown-ups…
My diaper dropped to the landing, full of poop.
Then laughter rang out. (Ha. Ha. Ha.)
We all have poop stories, but how often do we share them?
Which brings me to my first acupuncture session.
I had burnt out on the idea of being an artist.
My theory was that because I was born into a family of artists/art lovers, I followed the path in the same way the child of a baker gets into the trade.
Why couldn’t I be in medicine, for example?
At twenty-five, I had no undergrad degree, and I didn’t want to be a doctor per se.
But I liked the idea of helping people feel better.
I found myself researching the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine and looking at pre-requisites for a degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine: biology, physiology, psychology, and a few others that made me sweat.
I’d never been good at science - the memorization part - but psychology clicked.
While applying to Hunter College at the City University of New York to finish undergrad in the biological sciences, I visited the Manhattan campus of P.C.O.M.
Part of the process of applying was to have a consultation with a TCM student and advisor. They checked the whites of my eyes, my tongue, my fingernails, and asked about my bowel movements.
Hmmm, I thought. Poop as a diagnostic tracker?
I chose to have an acupuncture treatment for the sinus congestion I’d been experiencing since I moved to NYC six months earlier.
I wanted to see if acupuncture could alleviate the symptoms.
Later that evening, hours after the session, I was very tired.
Exhausted. In bed, not asleep but calm.
And then it hit me… a sensation in my gut, my sphincter, oh no…..
I ran to the toilet and took the biggest shit of my life!
Then I drank a bunch of water and passed out.
The next morning I woke up with clear nasal passages.
Full breaths of air passing through what had been blockage.
I did not go to school for Traditional Chinese Medicine.
But I have since lived in reverence of signals my G.I. system sends my brain.
YOUR TURN: Where does SENSATION take you? Sensation -al, -ism, -ist, -alism, -alist, and so on. Sensation from sensory. Is it stimulation in the brain that causes sensation or sensation in the body that stimulates the brain?
Share your story in 150 - 200 words. Poop stories are not required.
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Happy writing!
Cato Puppy trotted beside me, as I picked up sticks that had fallen into the steep-pitched grassy meadow in front of our house. When I scooched to snag the end of a good-sized stick, the other end, embedded in soil, boomeranged into my face. I cupped my right eye and blinked. I could see just fine. “Come on, Cato, let’s get some more sticks.” Soon my right eye was watering—a lot—and I called it quits. In the bathroom, I rinsed my eye with drops then sat down at my laptop for the morning. After a while, I felt the sensation of debris floating in my eye. I checked it in the bathroom mirror then asked Keith to take a look. “I don’t see anything,” he said, lifting my eyelid this way and that. “Your eye looks fine.” But it felt uncomfortable, so I took an anti-inflammatory and returned to write while mopping tears that flowed out of my eye. By the afternoon, whenever I looked up from the computer screen, a needle-sharp jab shot through my eye. I’m going blind, I thought; I’m going to lose my eye. “Keith, you’re going to have to take me to the doctor. This really hurts.” “I still can’t see anything in your eye, and it looks normal. Why don’t you try resting? Using your eye probably caused the irritation.” “But I haven’t practiced my flute yet, and it’s a perfect day to wash Freya and Cato and walk him to the mailbox.” All the things I’d planned to do that afternoon. “You can do those things another time. Now you need to rest.” “Okay, okay, I’ll cover my right eye with a scarf and practice.” Keith rolled his eyes and sighed. While I practiced, looking like a pirate, both eyes watered. Argh! I couldn’t see the music. So, I put my flute away, lay down, closed my eyes, and dozed. When I got up, the sensation of debris in my eye was gone. No more sharp jabs shooting through my eyeball. No sight impairment from watering, only a dull ache. The next day, my eye felt better. So, I did one simple thing then another and another. I didn’t go blind or lose an eye. But it took the sensation of a log in my eye for me to enjoy being able to do life’s simple things.
Nothing is as sweet and freaky like the temporary disorientation I feel when I come home after a trip. Opening the door and stepping into my hallway gives me a spatial shock that makes me question, "Is this my couch? Has this vase always been so yellow?" Everything seems so much dirtier or cleaner or brighter or darker or bigger or smaller or straighter or more skewed. The fact that there's still stuff in the fridge and cupboards seems silly. As if they should have thrown themselves together in a meal while I was gone. It's not a feeling of disappointment, but wonder.
I always hear about how travel can change you, but could there also be a concurrent change in the belongings we leave behind? While driving over that zig-zaggy road, my bathroom mirror fogged up .001%. In the middle of that conversation with a fellow traveler telling me the secret route to something, my hall light became 3% brighter. While spending 1 hour trying to decide on a purchase at a museum gift shop, my coffee table expanded .05mm. I probably won’t be able to study and prove this since it only happens when I'm not looking for a while.