I’ve decided I just need to break the silence and start writing so I’m going to be gentle about it and start off writing about any old thing until I get back into the swing of it all and then I can write something more boat related again. So, we spent some weeks of the winter away in Salvador, Brazil, and came back to mid-winter February NOT carnival and heat and fun. So that was challenging. And yes, I can’t complain because lucky old me to get to go away at all. But damn. That transition back between two such insanely opposite cultures is hard. In order to get myself through I wrote a list of attributes of each country. And it reads like a language exercise: Brazil: Hot, England: Cold, Brazil: Bright Colourful, England: Dull, Monochrome. Etc. Obviously this is very much simplifying the situation, but on the surface it is distinctly bi-polar. Which is probably why I am a bit too.
So I started acupuncture when I got back as part of being a better less bi-polar person. It is run by an ex- Advertising Art Director who had some sort of mid-life crisis when she was working on a particularly full-on job and realised she was existing on Marlborough Lights, no sleep and Frazzles alone. As good as Frazzles are they are Not a sensible Lifestyle Choice , so she had a life re-think and came to acupuncture. Now a qualified therapist she runs ‘community’ acupuncture sessions in a church hall nearby and anyone can go, pay £20 and have an hour long session in a bed with a other pinned-up people all in a row next to you. It’s actually very sensible and I am so far loving it. Not only because I like the actual effect it is having (placebo or not) on my stress levels (I’m a terrible hoarder of emotions) but because I love the idea of this ‘let’s all get together and be cured’ business. ‘Get those needles in us and feel us better!. And all in a cold fusty church hall.
What happens is that there are staggered start-times and you each come in, tell the acupuncturist all about your ‘isshoos’ or how your week has been and then she lies you down and in they go. What I like is that we all sit there listening to each other’s ailments and emotions and that feels just fine. What we normally keep behind private doors flows about freely and its humbling and reassuring. No one on this planet gets away with not feeling all these things. These ‘deeply personal’ things. Maybe if they weren’t so deeply personal we would all feel less traumatised by them. Anyway, as a non-religious sort, I like this little slice of conviviality.