Adventures in Acupuncture

Because I think it’s fun to blame the universe for my problems, I decide the fact that I am twelve minutes late to my first acupuncture appointment is proof of my gross misalignment.

“I need this,” I rationalize. “It’s easy for balanced people to be on time.”

I explain this theory to a braless receptionist.

“Fill these out and return them to me,” she says, brandishing papers. I take the forms and realize that I am sweating profusely.

I tell her that I am not the sort of girl who is afraid of needles, which is true. Still, I am not exactly thrilled to be here. I accept that I am a lunatic who has volunteered to pay a stranger to stab her in the back and begin to record my grievances in block print.

I suffer from mild back pain and bad circulation. Sciatica runs in my family. In the winter, it takes several hours for my toes to thaw. Earlier this year, I logged so many successive afternoons in a chair that I pinched my own nerve.

My usual doctor, who manages my mild hypochondria like a champ, has already recommended a handful of boring solutions to these ills.

Sit less. Move more. Buy better gloves.

“Sure, sure,” I say. “But I’d like to try something different.”

To appease me, she proposes acupuncture. She tells me some of her patients swear by it.

It sounds mysterious and improbable. I’m sold. I make an appointment immediately.

At the office, I return the forms and am introduced to the acupuncturist. She, too, has forgone an underwire. I sit on a massage table and let her prod me. When I wince, she says my liver is “in denial.” She prescribes galangal root capsules, which my mother insists I flush down the toilet as soon as I get home.

The acupuncturist says she calls the twenty or so tiny swords she is about to insert into my flesh “fairy feet.” This does not put me at ease.

They don’t hurt, exactly. But they don’t go undetected either.

“It’s working!” I tell myself.

Except it isn’t, really. At the end of the session, I feel exactly as I did before. Only sleepier and more hostile toward Tinker Bell.

“Wow!” I say.

“This isn’t not for everyone,” says the acupuncturist, which I think is generous of her to admit. “But I do have something that might help you.”

I expect that she will prescribe a Chinese supplement or propose that I sleep under a dream catcher. She does neither. Instead, she tells me to put my hands together in front of my heart and breathe deep. I picture an Emoji.

“Now raise them over your head, roll your shoulders back, and slowly drop your arms to your sides as you exhale.”

I gasp. There is nothing barbaric or masochistic about the sequence. As far as instructions go, this one is only slightly better choreographed than the suggestion to “move more” that was offered to me several months ago. But I don’t care. I’m elated. For a moment, I feel perfect.

It has been three months and I have yet to return to the acupuncturist. But I do the exercise she taught me constantly — on the subway and in the morning and in bed. I share it with everyone I love. All of us push ourselves too hard and too fast. We are cavalier with our bodies and minds and with our cashmere sweaters, which need to be cleaned. We try to drink a lot of water and remember to smell the roses at the bodega around the corner. But it’s hard.

This is easy. This feels good.

It feels so good that I linger and stretch and repeat it so many times on Tuesday morning that the next thing I know I am late to meet my friend.

I decide I should meditate. The tranquil are punctual, right?

Images via Madame Figaro and Bob O’Connor