But there is the sea again. There is the great wide ocean.
~
As part of my long-term treatment, I meet with a vision therapist once a week. Last year, he told me I should start seeing a craniosacral therapist.
Craniosacral therapy is soft-touch treatment that aids the functions of the membranes and cerebrospina fluid that surround and protect the brain.1
Or—
There are 22 bones in the human skull. Craniosacral therapists shift and manipulate those bones to help spinal fluid flow better.
In healthy people, spinal fluid is flowing pretty well. For those with brain swelling (and especially for those whose medical history also includes major reconstructive maxillofacial surgery, or—a broken upper jaw sawed off, realigned, and screwed back into place), not so much.
~
Tell me—
Where is the meditation music with nature sounds of horses? Why is it always songbirds in deep jungle green or babbling brooks and rain?
Where are the rainbows and why are there robbers and garbage and disease? Why hasn’t anyone fixed it? How many plumbers does it take?
Why is it always the ocean? Why is it always the sea?
~
In Concussion is Brain Injury, Shireen JeeJeebhoy writes the best description of a closed-head injury I’ve ever encountered: “My skull wasn’t broken; my skin wasn’t even marked. All that had happened was that my brain had smacked around inside my skull like Jell-O inside a corrugated, shark-tooth infested bowl.”2
~
Every day I take myself to the pool and work my body like a horse. I add more wrist and ankle weights. I add four laps a day and stay until they’re done.
This is the garbage I think of. This is the disease of the mind and how it wanders through laps and time and grief: bloody blue sheets, Prison Break, babbling brooks and rain.
Gaudry | 13
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1 Lee, Joseph R. “What is CranioSacral Therapy?” CranioSacral Therapy. 10 Feb 2013. Web.
2 Jeejeebhoy, Shireen. Concussion Is Brain Injury. Toronto: Iguana Books, 2012. Print.