by Julie Evans
Our truly inspired Executive Administrator of Health Care Is A Human Right (an alternative health care organization of which I am a founding member) sent me an email asking me to write an article for our newsletter on how I have been, and am dealing with, the Covid-19 pandemic. I think part of her motivation to even create this newsletter is to keep our clinic volunteers connected. Rumor has it that many of the health care providers that volunteer their services are going through some hard things. I think Ida, that’s the administrator’s name, wants to lift people’s spirits and give them some ideas or hope or just a place to express themselves.
I wondered where I’d even begin my story about massage. When I was a little girl my mom was like a healer when I was growing up. She was always making potions and helping people with their aches and pains. She used to massage me and I used to massage her and my dad and my cat and my pony. Both my parents died when I was young and when I got older and went off to college I wanted to be a doctor. I went to night school and studied whatever medical courses I could and during the day I worked in a cancer hospital as a nursing assistant. I’d have to say working there was when I realized touch heals much more than just aches and pains. Those patients, many of them farmers, all of them getting chemotherapy, were terrified. When I’d lay my hand on them I felt something pass between us. It’s as if I could talk to them through my touch. I started massaging their feet or their shoulders and they were able to relax a little. But she didn’t ask me to write about massage, she asked how the pandemic was affecting my life and my practice.
So maybe the story should begin in 1982 in the steam room at the YMCA in Kingston, New York where I met Cary who gave massages for a living. Back then I was recuperating from a bad horseback riding accident and used the weight room at the Y and that steam room as my healing sanctuary. I made an appointment with her for a massage. Before I met Cary I’d just never thought of giving massages for a living but once I saw what a difference each session with her made I was amazed. I studied and learned. I began my own practice at the Woodstock Health Club and in my home nearly forty years ago. Since that time I parcel my days into hours and hope there will be people enough to fill the slots. Building a practice was not easy. I don’t advertise so it’s all word of mouth. My years of hard work have paid off and I have a strong clientele or I mean, I did, until Covid-19 shut the industry down and scared people away. Some clients that I’ve worked with for more than thirty years have not come back.
Suddenly having my profession, my life’s work, classified as nonessential in the face of a worldwide health crisis when massage therapy is perhaps one of the most effective antidotes for stress and pain was demeaning and devastating. Liquor stores were open and we were closed. A client called just a few weeks into the pandemic and said she’d made the choice to stop eating and not fight the cancer anymore. She asked if I would massage her through her dying days. It was an honor.
In early March Cary convinced me to file for unemployment. So along with a forced rest, Covid brought me seven hundred and eighty two dollars a week and a chance to do something different with my days. Each day I would venture outside in the crisp spring air and walk for two hours then I’d come home and read and write and stretch and cook. I didn’t have to remind people of their appointments. I didn’t have to hope my datebook filled up. I had time to take a look at things I needed to do. My daily walks revealed old injuries in my body that needed some attention and I was able to start physical therapy with a doctor who has now inspired me to learn a whole new set of skills because what she did helped me so much. As my body healed, those walks became hikes up a steep mountain, runs around a nature preserve, and long hard bike rides. As my body became stronger and my heart got worked in a new way, a true stamina returned to my body.
It was on one of those challenging hikes that I came upon a treasure meant just for me. A little baby chipmunk squirmed on the path in front of me. With his tiny back smashed and bleeding and back legs paralyzed he tried to pull himself in front of me. I didn’t hesitate. I reached into my pack and pulled out a handful of tissues and scooped him up. I carry arnica and rescue remedy with me and dosed him up. He rested atop the tissues and I carried him down the mountain. It appeared to me that he had an injured spinal cord and needed my help. I fed him kitty cat formula with a small oral syringe; I cleaned his wounds and gave him remedies. With his spine still injured I would carry him across my back yard wrapped up in a small washcloth, his little body wiggling with excitement. I’d set him down on the knobby roots of a black walnut tree where he could get a grip with his front legs and pull himself up the tree, his back legs still paralyzed. Then I’d give him the chipmunk version of a physical therapy session to restore the use of his legs. When I came to Woodstock I couldn’t walk either and I lived on that same mountain and I got better.
So my days filled up with caring for him. He was strong and fun and trusted me and as much as the rest did me good and the unemployment helped, I’d have to say that it was the seventeen days taking care of a little chipmunk that gave me a real sense of worth. He set himself free in my yard rather than letting me take him back to the mountain where I’d found him. As the weather warmed and the world opened up a little and we were given the go ahead to work I created a beautiful outdoor massage suite under my carport. It had a dressing room with a wicker rocker and couch and thick shag rug. I built a stone patio where the table would be and hung gorgeous crimson silk curtains that billowed in the wind. My yard is full of chimes and plants and birdsong. The client who asked for my care during her dying days gave me a beautiful massage table before she passed away and I set up out there to honor her too. Just like my indoor massage studio I covered the table with soft sheets and long luscious towels and used my marvelous assortment of healing balms and lotions.
Clients began coming back. Some preferred to be inside with all the air filters and UV light and indoor plumbing but others like the outdoor experience. When I was massaging a friend of mine in my new outdoor salon I glanced over to the wicker rocker and there sat my little chipmunk watching me, my tiny avatar. My heart swells with joy and confidence every time I see him.
Through the summer I continued my treks up the mountain, long bike rides and daily exercise routines. Even though some of the old clients didn’t come out of their homes I have been blessed with many new and wonderful people to work with. A few things that kept me focused were my writing and virtual meetings with my writer’s group and my weekly attendance at a twelve step program on Zoom for people that grew up in an alcoholic household (ACOA). Isolation is a big part of growing up with an alcoholic parent so its tricky terrain in a pandemic not to just disappear. In some ways those Zoom meetings were even more intimate than meeting in person.
So to answer Ida’s question about how the pandemic has affected me and my practice I’d have to say that it brought me closer to the truth of who I am and what I love, than I’ve ever been before. It brought me new clients, new revelations, an injured chipmunk, clearer boundaries, a stronger body, time to feel and time to heal. Taking that step back from what I’ve done for a lifetime was good for me. Thank you for asking.
