Halfway

The halfway point in the rolfing series - 5 sessions in. She could see that my neck was messed up when I walked in. That's primarily where the tension was. Even more than usual, it's difficult to write about what happened in there. So much. At one point she was working sort of up under the base of my skull, the attachment point of the upper trapezius. It's a spot on my body that's never been touched. She asked me if, when I was younger, I used to do a lot of raging. She said she could feel something like a massive scream in there. Later, she asked if I swallowed that rage when I got older instead of expressing it. At another point, she was working along the center line around my diaphram. My eyes were closed. I remembered the faces and the names of the men in the jail in Anchorage. The circle. Walter Austin, the Elder. The larger circle of corrections officers behind us. The three-tiered crescent of plexiglass fronted cells behind them. The way it felt when we'd hold hands as Walter said a closing prayer. What passed between us there. I remembered all the people in the agency who welcomed me, taught me, showed me care. Tears started to come. When she moved to my legs, something changed and I fell about 85 percent asleep. I was still aware, but something internal had down shifted. When it was over, the tension in my skull, neck, shoulders and back had softened. She looked at me. There were tears in her eyes - most uncharacteristic of her. Without warning, they started falling from mine too. That's your heart opening, she said. Those people you were thinking of are all around you.