looking in the mirror / stepping backwards into the sea
reflections on finding care (again), returning, and bodies of water
Step back to the sea and enter into the water.
Recently, I met a new artist friend. Somehow without ever saying a word, we both knew we were secretly from Los Angeles. And turns out we also both hated capital D dance but were still somehow, unavoidably dancers.
We get dim sum at Nom Wah on a sweltering summer early evening, the sweat beading off of our brows and lemon teas.
“You’re Taiwanese? My acupuncturist is too!”
I smile and nod on autopilot, yes, yes there are quite a few Taiwanese out there, and no, no I probably don’t know them. Then I finally hear what she’s saying.
“…Wait, really? Can I get her contact?!”
“Yeah of course! Let me send it to you. She’s amazing. Very fast.”
She demonstrates, her hands rapidly sticking invisible needles into a floating body in front of us.
“One time I was feeling anxious and she just put a single needle at the top of my head, and it all just woooooossssh!”
Her hands wash over her chest, torso, hips, sides- a waterfall cascading down and out.
“Took all the stress out of me. It was incredible.”
I nod emphatically. I will never get tired of the way dancers speak.
Over the past few months I’ve been trying to piece together a care routine again.
Having spent over 4 months in Taiwan earlier this year with weekly access to a meridian bodyworker and herbalist, I realized in receiving consistent, quality care, my chronic pain quieted from an incessant wail to a low, intermittent hum.
I began to practice Tai Chi with a knowledgeable sifu twice a week, and witnessed first-hand the ease of living in Taipei, a city replete with public parks, accessible transportation, and tropical temperatures. And of course, the amazing food that my body craved was never far from reach.
It wasn’t so bad that Covid was nearly nonexistent there either. Mask-wearing was a cultural norm even pre-pandemic and the government’s endemic response was built up since the days of early 2000’s era SARS. People knew what to do. It was a wonder witnessing first-hand collective care practiced by the public and the government: from early-on mask rationing, to implementing geolocation tracking in intentional ways, to neighborhood community watches, to friendly texts reminding travelers to quarantine. A stern but kind auntie on the subway remarking: “Ey! Pull up your mask and cover your nose.” People practiced care without needing to be convinced. I felt safe, cared for- the constant gaslighting I felt negotiating my own safety in the US faded into the background like a bad dream from the night before.
I noticed my chronic pain receding, flares just didn’t happen for weeks. I felt good. Really good.
A deeper pain was receding too- the one we of the diaspora know too well, the one that sits deep in our chest, sometimes opening up late at night, an inconsolable ache for the parts of us we’ve lost or never even knew we lost.
I get the contact on my phone. My eyes widen, and I laugh out loud.
“Wait are you serious?”
“What?”
My acupuncturist’s name was the same as my father’s Chinese name written in English.
Somehow the meeting point was in an imperfect translation– the spelling of a Chinese name a gesture towards American legibility, of belonging.
I remember as a kid my father trying to use a ‘real’ English name for a few years. My mom picked the name “Adam.” I would watch him introduce himself to others with it, fumbling over the long “A” in his name, never seeming to get it right. I caught him multiple times repeating it to himself as he prepared to introduce himself at open house school meetings or at the grocery store, his thick accent softening the sharp vowels.
It was a struggle. After a few years of introducing himself as “Edem” and “AHdem” he gave up, and went by his Chinese name, though that often seemed harder for other folks to remember.
“Li-Ting.”
“Ah, Lighting! Beautiful.”
I still haven’t gotten to the point where I’m good at remembering Chinese names. I hear the sounds and I make the words in my mouth and then they drip out of the hole in my chin.
This actually used to happen a lot when I was a kid, I wanted to play video games but was told to read Buddhist jing and drink tea with my parents. I’d throw the tea back, half of it dribbling down my shirt, my mom laughing at me asking if I had a hole in my chin. I’d be scared for a second, what hole? my hand reaching for my chin then realizing it was a joke. She’d laugh.
Later, when I was alone, I’d check the mirror just in case, making sure my mouth and chin didn’t have any unaccounted leaks or holes.
I enter the acupuncturist’s office and afternoon sunlight streams into a western window. She’s light-hearted, friendly, airy- I find out she moved here from Taiwan because her partner lives here. She says she has been living here over 7 years but still isn’t used to the cold winters here. I feel her words in my bones, knowing the effect cold has on me as well.
I lie face-down, watching the sunlight stream into the room on the floor. She moves quickly down my back, the muscles in my back twitch involuntarily. She slows down and gently proceeds, meeting my body where it was at. “You’re not ready for me to go very deep. I’ll go very light this time.”
She tells me how she came back to work months ago before getting vaccinated because she works with many pregnant women, helping them during their final stages of pregnancy. “I had to be back. There’s no waiting when you are having a baby. I needed to help the mommies, help their babies turn.”
Childbirth is still a mystery to me, but this I knew: the baby has to turn with their head downwards to be born. I was astounded to learn in that moment acupuncture aided in that process. My eyes welled up with emotion. It is a kind of mystical feminine power to steward birthing of life.
She places a plastic buzzer in my hand. “20 minutes, okay?” We leave the needles in for me to ‘cook.’
“Okay.”
“Okay! See you sooooon!”
She scampers off to the next patient, closing the door gently behind her.
Gentle piano music plays from a nearby iPhone.
I start to sob uncontrollably.
In that moment, there was a release.
Perhaps it was the fear I had held in my body since leaving Taiwan, realizing I would likely not be able to find the same quality of care in the US, compounded with the fear of returning to a place that valued individualism in an era of global illness.
Perhaps it was relief, being held by someone familiar, feeling safe in the hands of a woman who shared the same name as my ancestors, the same anglicized name as my father, who stewards literal life into this world.
Or perhaps it was physiologically my tired body releasing tension after months of shifting, moving countries, moving neighborhoods, moving apartments, furnishing, vaccinating, working, walking, sitting, etc. A wave of exhaustion intertwined with emotion that poured out of me.
Perhaps it was all of the above, everything, all at once.
Woooooossssh!
Here I am, looking back in the mirror, stepping backwards into the sea, finding bits and pieces around to keep the water from dripping out too quickly.
Sometimes the leak brims from my eyes, other times a pool of frigid water grows in my sides. I nurse it with a heat pad, a trashy Taiwanese drama, songs that remind me to breathe, food that calls me home, fragrant loose-leaf teas, the smaller-than-a-pin holes my acupuncturist pricks into my body.
Signaling a pathway home.
A audiovisual movement score/ meditation made in partnership with bodies of water can be found here. This score is part of an ongoing collaboration with Yidan Zeng that began at the Wave Hill Artist Residency in 2021.
Thanks for reading and receiving this offering. Let me know what you think of this. I’m imagining this space to host many thoughts and stories like these, as a way of journaling to hone my writing practice and also to share thoughts with more intentionality beyond social media. Drop me a line!
And a few updates:
I started a year-long research/ teaching fellowship at NYU ITP, creating a curriculum entitled “Media-making as Healing Practice.” I also began a dance residency at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange where I will be working out my performance practice and hopefully hosting future workshops with ROTATIONS.
I’m deepening my practice into Qi Gong and Tai Qi, finding Chinese/ Taiwanese teachers in NYC both in the park and on Zoom. I’m hoping to begin deeper research into Traditional Chinese Medicine (acupuncture, herbalism, etc.) through Chinese/ Taiwanese teachers. If you know of anyone in this field with this background offering learning opportunities, let me know! (:
<3,
yoyo