The Cranes Dance Read Online Free Page A
Author: Meg Howrey
know. You do these things.
He probed my neck for a few minutes and then said he wanted to do X-rays and that I have “a lot going on in there.” But today we just had time for an adjustment. It’s tricky having your neck adjusted. For it to work you have to totally relax, but it’s hard to relax when the movements of the chiropractor are remarkably similar to those of the Boston Strangler.
I asked Dr. Ken if having a pinched nerve in your neck will affect your peripheral vision, and he asked me why, was I experiencing that? The thing is, I keep anticipating that something is going to come around a corner and stab me in the eye. Seriously,for the past few weeks, every time I go around a corner, on the street, or in the hallways at work, I want to jerk my head back and cover my eyes. I don’t though. In fact, I have been forcing myself to take corners quickly and sharply to sort of punish myself for getting neurotic. This started before the neck injury, so I told Dr. Ken no, that I had read something online, and he told me that I shouldn’t do that.
I’m sure there is some deep dark secret reason behind the stabbed-in-the-eye scenario, but really, I don’t see how knowing
why
I have this fear will help stop it. That’s why I don’t see any point in going to a shrink. Knowing
why
you broke the glass—because you weren’t paying attention to where the edge of the table was, dummy—doesn’t make you less sorry, doesn’t mend the glass, doesn’t ensure it won’t happen again, that you won’t break something more precious next time. The shrink might say that actually you knew perfectly well where the edge of the table was, but you chose to miss and break the glass because you wanted to sabotage yourself or something, but please. That’s like saying drug addicts are sabotaging themselves. Hello! Drugs are fantastic and you get addicted because they are fantastic and it’s just bad luck that they can destroy you too.
I’ve read how there were so many women in Vienna talking about how they were sexually abused as children that Sigmund Freud wondered if there were some kind of child molestation epidemic going on. But no. The trouble was that even though these women hadn’t been abused, they so thoroughly believed that it had happened that they exhibited all the symptoms of legitimate victims. So for all intents and purposes, they
had
been abused. Which would piss me off if I were a legitimatevictim, and makes you wonder what exactly the point is of having any actual experiences if you can be just as affected by imaginary ones.
Nobody hit Gwen, or molested her, or anything like that, nor does she claim they did. Even when she’s acting delusional and paranoid she doesn’t say that. She knows her limits. She usually knows mine. Now I’m worried that she’s deliberately acting crazy just to prove something to me. But that she smashed her own knee is … well. I called Dad because I was worried that she was going to harm herself, and that ended up happening anyway.
After Dr. Ken, I took the subway downtown to Dr. Wang for acupuncture.
Dr. Wang doesn’t have any pictures of us on his walls, and as far as I know has never even been to the ballet. I explained about my neck and he took my pulse in about ten different places. His hands are hard but so incredibly smooth that I imagine his fingerprints to be without lines or ridges, just perfectly uniform ovals like the backs of small spoons. Sometimes Dr. Wang will ask questions or dispense wisdom, but today he just took my pulse and then did his tapping thing. He taps your whole body with his spoon fingers and when he finds a spot that interests him, he sticks a needle in. The first one went into my left hand, which made my right leg jump.
“Yes,” said Dr. Wang, inscrutably.
After about ten minutes of this, I wound up with about four needles in each hand, and none in my neck or shoulder where the actual pain is. But you can’t question Dr. Wang about
He probed my neck for a few minutes and then said he wanted to do X-rays and that I have “a lot going on in there.” But today we just had time for an adjustment. It’s tricky having your neck adjusted. For it to work you have to totally relax, but it’s hard to relax when the movements of the chiropractor are remarkably similar to those of the Boston Strangler.
I asked Dr. Ken if having a pinched nerve in your neck will affect your peripheral vision, and he asked me why, was I experiencing that? The thing is, I keep anticipating that something is going to come around a corner and stab me in the eye. Seriously,for the past few weeks, every time I go around a corner, on the street, or in the hallways at work, I want to jerk my head back and cover my eyes. I don’t though. In fact, I have been forcing myself to take corners quickly and sharply to sort of punish myself for getting neurotic. This started before the neck injury, so I told Dr. Ken no, that I had read something online, and he told me that I shouldn’t do that.
I’m sure there is some deep dark secret reason behind the stabbed-in-the-eye scenario, but really, I don’t see how knowing
why
I have this fear will help stop it. That’s why I don’t see any point in going to a shrink. Knowing
why
you broke the glass—because you weren’t paying attention to where the edge of the table was, dummy—doesn’t make you less sorry, doesn’t mend the glass, doesn’t ensure it won’t happen again, that you won’t break something more precious next time. The shrink might say that actually you knew perfectly well where the edge of the table was, but you chose to miss and break the glass because you wanted to sabotage yourself or something, but please. That’s like saying drug addicts are sabotaging themselves. Hello! Drugs are fantastic and you get addicted because they are fantastic and it’s just bad luck that they can destroy you too.
I’ve read how there were so many women in Vienna talking about how they were sexually abused as children that Sigmund Freud wondered if there were some kind of child molestation epidemic going on. But no. The trouble was that even though these women hadn’t been abused, they so thoroughly believed that it had happened that they exhibited all the symptoms of legitimate victims. So for all intents and purposes, they
had
been abused. Which would piss me off if I were a legitimatevictim, and makes you wonder what exactly the point is of having any actual experiences if you can be just as affected by imaginary ones.
Nobody hit Gwen, or molested her, or anything like that, nor does she claim they did. Even when she’s acting delusional and paranoid she doesn’t say that. She knows her limits. She usually knows mine. Now I’m worried that she’s deliberately acting crazy just to prove something to me. But that she smashed her own knee is … well. I called Dad because I was worried that she was going to harm herself, and that ended up happening anyway.
After Dr. Ken, I took the subway downtown to Dr. Wang for acupuncture.
Dr. Wang doesn’t have any pictures of us on his walls, and as far as I know has never even been to the ballet. I explained about my neck and he took my pulse in about ten different places. His hands are hard but so incredibly smooth that I imagine his fingerprints to be without lines or ridges, just perfectly uniform ovals like the backs of small spoons. Sometimes Dr. Wang will ask questions or dispense wisdom, but today he just took my pulse and then did his tapping thing. He taps your whole body with his spoon fingers and when he finds a spot that interests him, he sticks a needle in. The first one went into my left hand, which made my right leg jump.
“Yes,” said Dr. Wang, inscrutably.
After about ten minutes of this, I wound up with about four needles in each hand, and none in my neck or shoulder where the actual pain is. But you can’t question Dr. Wang about