Google, Headbands and Acupressure

I love Google. If they’d been around when I was a kid I probably never would have left my room…well, kind of like I am now with the kitchen where my computer wardrobe resides. (I do have a laptop I could take anywhere but I like my ergonomic keyboard too much for that,) Today I was off on a mission to find out why I imagine that I feel better when I’m wearing a headband. There is something about the pressure behind my ears that says, “Hey, Lady, be happy! Smile and don’t eat the chocolate brownies.” Too bad they went out of style for anyone but those under sixteen, brides and Red Hat Society ladies who attach floppy flowers to them and pretend they’re hats in hot weather.

Did you know that you can find directions for acupressure you can do with your fingers at the front of your ears to suppressor your appetite? I guess I should start wearing headbands in front of my ears instead of having those silly little plastic pieces end behind them. As warped as I am I wonder what would happen if you only apply acupressure to one ear and not the other, would you only smell with one nostril, taste with only one side of your tongue? If you apply the pressure to your right ear and not your left would you only suppress half of your appetite?

As intriguing as the topic of ear acupressure for weight loss is it doesn’t answer my original question of why pressure behind my ears makes me feel good and I found an explanation. Okay, so here’s the low down. There are six pressure points around the ear—four in back and two in the front and they are all along what is known as the “Triple Warmer Meridians.” My headbands ends at the pressure point that is supposed to help relieve headaches, anxiety, neck tension and tinnitus. Who knew! But I got that from a website that also talks about Shaman Healing and Tibetan Rites….I’m just sayin’ take it with a grain of salt. Oh, crap! Now I want to Google ‘taken with a grain of salt’ and find out when that first came into use. Another day, Jean. Another day you will be bored enough to google salt.

But I realized, today, as I googled way that I come by my new-found interest in acupressure honestly. Growing up my dad had a Foot Reflexology Map and a special tool and every night he proceeded to find the pressure points to relieve whatever problem he believed he was helping with his nightly ritual. In my distant past I also remember buying a special pair of sandals with bumps inside that were supposed to hit your acupressure points. They were the most uncomfortable pair of shoes I ever owned. Oh course, you’re only supposed to wear them for 10-15 minutes, not all day but who reads the directions when you’re twenty-something?

After my Google search all I know for sure is that I’m glad the holistic care center is way across town because I’d be over there getting hot stone treatments, cucumber facials and acupressure massages and I don’t think I can afford to fall down that rabbit hole. I’d probably like it too much and they’d keep selling me treatments until I drained my bank accounts and I was so relaxed and happy that I’d get mistaken for a bowl rainbow Jell-O----layers of happy piled one color on top of the other.

Seriously, though, since my husband died I’ve had a burning desire to go to a spa---I've never been to one---maybe even go to on a weekend Spa retreat but I can’t find single person is who willing to go with me which means I’ll just have to keep wearing headbands around the house and pretend some big Swedish woman just gave me a massage. ©

Widowhood, Shakespeare and Homing Pigeons

Today I googled the term “the winter of our lives” thinking I might like to write a blog entry with that line as my jumping off point. But Google turned up 111,000 links to that phrase and I’m not sure the world needs another one. One of those links was to a paraphrased version of William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 97 on Wikipedia:

                   “My separation from you has seemed like winter, since you give

                   pleasure to the year. Winter has seemed to be everywhere, even

                   though in reality our separation occurred during summer and fall,

                   when the earth produces plant life like a widow giving birth after

                   the death of her husband. Yet I saw these fruits of nature as hopeless

                   orphans, since it could not be summer unless you were here; since

                   you were away, even the birds did not sing, or rather sang so

                   plaintively that they made the very leaves look pale, thinking of winter.”

After reading that, I googled away another fifteen minutes before landing on a blog entry titled Widowhood Explained. I was excited. At last someone can explain what I’ve been going through since Don passed away in January. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a blog about racing pigeons. Widowhood racing, I learned, is a race just for the male birds---the cocks as they are properly called in the world of birding. The people who race these birds seem to spend a lot of time talking about whether or not cocks are better racers if they’ve been allowed to rear a brood or two before setting off on an odyssey to find their way back home from hundreds of miles away. And one bird trainer recommends introducing males to the hens for a two hour conjugal visit the day before a race. Candlelight and wine? I don’t think he furnished them but afterward he does gives the cocks a warm baths to help the birds relax and stay calm while being trucked to the race’s starting point.

As I thought about pigeon racing it stuck me that widows going through the grieving process have things in common with the pigeons in a widowhood race. Both homing pigeons and we widows are sent off on a task not of our own choosing. Some of us hurry through the process as if the devil himself is chasing us and some of us don’t want to leave the starting gate. Some of us get lost along the way, a few get injured. And have you ever known a group of widows who didn’t eventually get around to discussing whether or not the older widows who’ve had time to raise families with their spouses have it easier or harder than the young widows who just barely got started living with their mates?

There are other similarities as well. We are encouraged to take care of our health during our grieving period. Widowhood racing pigeons are pampered with special grains, vitamins and electrolytes. We can find mentors and widow clubs all over the country, same with people who are new to racing pigeons. But there is one thing that homing pigeons have that we widows don’t and that’s a numbered band that can help them get back to their lofts if they get lost. When we widows get lost in our travels through the grieving process wouldn’t it be nice if some kind stranger could look at a band on our body and gently help us find our way through this winter of our lives? ©

 

Sonnet 97 by William Shakespeare

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December's bareness every where!
And yet this time removed was summer's time,
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me
But hope of orphans and unfather'd fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute;
Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.

When Are You Getting Married Again, Widow Lady?

An old friend the other day asked me if I’m going to get married again. The question annoyed the heck out of me and it felt like an invasion of privacy especially since he asked it in front a third person I barely know. It took years to builds the kind of relationship Don and I had and I’m not interested in getting married again just to have another warm body in the house. But I tried not to let my annoyance show when I replied, “No.” Evidently that wasn’t a good enough answer because the next words out of his mouth were: “What’s the matter, once was enough?” I wasn’t sure how to take that second question and when I answered I felt like I was speaking the last lines in the movie, Secondhand Lions. I repeated my answer twice with an entirely different inflection the second time. In the movie the sheik’s great-grandson had asked, “These two men from your grandfather's stories, they really lived?” to which the adult Walter (played by John Lucas) answered, “They really lived.” Then a smile spread wide across on his face and he repeated, "Yeah, they really LIVED.”

“Once was enough,” is what I told my prying friend followed by, “Ya, once REALLY was enough.” I doubt my answer adequately expressed how I felt---Lucas got to rehearse his delivery and my smile was forced---but I couldn’t help thinking about it on the way home. Do people really think you can replace a 42 year long relationship so easily and be thinking about doing it when you’re only six months out from your spouse’s passing? Coming from an old friend the question hurt and it accented the fact that Don was the only person on the face of the earth who truly knew me---how I think, what my weaknesses and strengths are and how I hate being put on the spot in front of strangers.

Get married again? Not without a waterboarding, a case of amnesia or a proposal from Matthew McConaughey and Brad Pitt on the same day. Matthew or Brad? Yup, that choice might entice me to give up my plans for a new life filled with over-indulging in artsy-fartsy activities and Scottie Dogs Licorice, but no man in my age bracket could. If my friend picked up on my annoyance of his marriage questions, he probably would say I was being hyper-sensitive. Widows get accused of that all the time but, to me, asking a question like that was akin to asking an amputee if he’s going to get a new arm. I always think of good answers like that hours after it’s too late to deliver them. Now I’m prepared for the next getting-married-again question that comes my way. I will use a reply borrowed from another widow: “I don’t need to get married again; I got it right the first time.”

Having vented what I wanted to in the above paragraphs I realized this blog entry was too short. So I consulted my friend Google to find a quote to go with it. What I found along the way was directions for “how to marry a widow.” I kid you not. There really is a page at eHow with that title. Step one, it says: proceed with caution. You think? I find that amusing and wonder why that step doesn’t apply to all people getting married. Do people really throw caution to the winds when they get married the first time? No one could ever say that about Don and me. We dated forever first. Though I guess I understand the point of step one. It means proceed with caution because you’d be marrying the widow’s family as well as the widow…and let’s not forget that ghost hanging over her shoulder. ©

"Lost love is still love,” Eddie from the book The Five People You Meet in Heaven said. 

“It just takes a different form, that's all.

You can't hold their hand, you can't tousle their hair.

But when those senses weaken, another one comes to life.

 Memory.

Memory becomes your partner, you hold it, you dance with it.

 Life has to end, Eddie, Love doesn't."