by Jesse Scherer LMT
I have always known that hands heal. That one human had the power to help another and that moving skin, connective tissue, muscle and bringing blood to an area was a way to keep a body strong to avoid stagnancy and therefore bring vitality and energy to it.
I had these thoughts when I was very young.
My grandmother and I would play games with each other’s hands on long car rides. I experienced a certain level of deep attention from her by how keenly her hands moved to meet my energy. We would play finger “wars”, the attentiveness with which we engaged was different than other forms of interaction I experienced in my busy family where having three daughters in the 60s was not an easy task and left little time for one on one attention.
So it was no great surprise when eventually after graduation from college with a BS in philosophy, I chose massage therapy as a direction to take. For more than twenty years I have been working and learning and honing my craft. Body work has been my life’s work so when the pandemic hit life took a strange turn into the unknown in a very significant way.
I will admit I struggled to end my practice in the first few days of the pandemic but within a week or so, I was home like everyone else in semi shock wondering what was going on. For a few weeks my hands were empty, lonely, even like an athlete who isn’t able to train, my hand muscles needed movement. My energy needed to be utilized.
I ended up taking on consultation work with a local non profit organization I work with and this fed me. I saw that working in a new way could satisfy me. I like the brainstorming, my ideas being heard. Listening to others ideas. I felt valued in the world of change and possibilities in such a different way than my solo masssage work offers me.
Zoom meetings within this organization became places I learned a new language, the language of communication within groups . The deadlines were exciting, and seeing others faces with whom I was co-creating with felt fulfilling to me.
I also caught up with myself during this time. I am someone who packs a whole lot into a day. The reality of Covid changed what was humanly possible to accomplish . I gardened, I slept, cooked, loved, researched and protested. Within all the turmoil, I took time to pray and to also enjoy myself and show gratitude that I was able to live life comfortably at such an intense time.
As restrictions lifted and people started asking for body work, needing it on a deep level, I began doing house calls with mask and other CDC recommendations, including taking temperature and oxygen/blood levels.
There is a certain ease that I feel when I do house calls. It plays into a freedom of space and movement that I crave. It allows me to be free of institutions, even the facade of a building. Instead I get to buzz around helping folks heal. In all different places, on my own time and in their own homes.
I have maintained a portion of my work as home visits since then. My practice has bounced back in the most healthy way!
I am committed to keeping the extra time between clients that I had never built into my schedule. I am also keeping an extra day to myself. To dream write and work on other projects.
I am more finely tuned to each person who chooses to come lay on my table in a way that
surpasses my deep understanding of their physical self. I sense their humanness and our
connection after our shared experience with in this pandemic.
I’m not sure which direction I will go over the next year. I feel so grateful that I get to be
intimately connected to others and That my practice has survived In such a vital way.
I also know that I enjoy doing public work that utilizes my brain employs my other strong
qualities of gathering ideas with others about how to make our community a better more
healthy place.
Human touch and attention continues to be the simple remedy in all times.
Cell # 914.466.1517
catskillmountainmassage.com
