A lifelong journey of mayhem.

By Mary Reiman

It’s been a journey.  

I choose to believe I inherited many fine qualities from my dear mother, but I also inherited her bad sinuses. Those of you who also deal with pounding headaches, aching teeth, a face that hurts all over and all the other symptoms of a sinus infection understand what I’m talking about. For those of you who have never had to worry about that, you are very, very lucky.

When one has a pounding headache for days on end, one becomes willing to try just about anything to make it better. Over time, one learns that antibiotics don’t always help. Allergy shots aren't the answer. And sinus surgery (cleaning out those sinus cavities and fixing a deviated septum) isn’t the final solution. 

Does one give up hope? Well...almost.

During this month of MAYhem I decided to go out-of-my-box and take a road less traveled.  

I found Sarah. It’s not that I didn’t know Sarah. I have been longtime friends of her family, and I’ve known her since she was born. She grew up in Lincoln, graduated from LHS and UNL. On to a graduate medical program in Chicago and then Portland, resulting in a Masters of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine from top-rated Chinese Medicine School, OCOM. Luckily for us, she has found her way back to Lincoln and is a licensed acupuncturist, after passing her board exams for her license to practice acupuncture in the state of Nebraska. With years of training, she understands the way our bodies function and the way ancient medicine can help them function better.  During each session she takes the time to explain more of it to me. In my eyes, she is magical. 

Every breath, every action we take has meaning. For all these years I have been amazed simply by how our heart keeps beating, no matter how we use and abuse our bodies. I am more incredulous now that I see how each movement, action, and emotion so clearly impacts every breath I take. Chinese medicine looks at the physiology and psychology each patient. Therapy involves bringing the body into balance, to restore harmony to the individual.

All things have two aspects: yin and yang. Opposite characteristics that can complement each other. Both parts of the whole. Both needed for balance. In terms of the body, the front is considered yin and the back is yang. I am well aware that is a very, very simplified definition. Think about how every emotion has an opposite emotion. Happy/Sad. Relaxed/Agitated. Hot/Cold. Sleep/Awake. Quiet/Loud. Then think about how our bodies often react to those emotions.

Yin/Yang: Two halves that mutually form the wholeness of Qi. The mixing of the two energies makes life possible. When life-force energy is appropriately balanced between Yin and Yang, it flows smoothly maintaining and promoting a good state of physical and emotional health.

How does acupuncture work? 

The energy meridians in the body and mind can be influenced by needling the acupuncture points: acupuncture needles unblock the obstructed flow of energy and blood and reestablish normal flow through the meridians, thereby restoring health and balance. Vital energy or Qi is present in every part of the human being’s body, including in the human mind and brain. Acupuncture treatments can therefore help the body to correct imbalances in all areas.

Yes, fine needles are used to help increase blood flow throughout the channels of our bodies. Meridians are the channels or pathways that carry Qi (energy) and blood through the body. The meridians connect the interior of the body to the exterior. The basis of acupuncture theory is that working with points on the exterior of the body will affect what goes on inside the body. It is a study of interconnectedness. Fascinating!

Amazingly, I didn’t feel any of the 40 fine needles the first time I visited Sarah’s office. Lying on my back, they were placed at the crown of my head, on my face, wrists, legs and ankles. I did not feel them go in, no clue exactly where they were located, and had no pain when they were taken out 20 minutes later. I didn’t even realize when she was finished removing them. 

Two weeks later, 35 needles were in place from the top of my head to my ears, upper back, legs and ankles. One of the unexpected outcomes is better balance because the channels of blood flow from my head to my toes has improved. 

I borrowed Sarah‘s books to understand acupuncture better, to learn more, not only about the process, but about the history behind the importance of balancing the body. There’s no simple way to explain Qi. It is thought of as the vital life that flows through the body, as well as the energy flow that is all around us. But it is much more complex than a two-sentence definition. We all function better when we are rested, when we have more energy. We feel better when we can find ways to let go of stress, whatever that stress may be. That does make sense to me.

After years of antibiotics and trying to find ways to not get sinus infections that morph into full-blown headaches, I am relieved to have found another pathway to better health. 

For those who don’t believe there is therapeutic power in ancient Chinese medicine, think about the fact that the Chinese were studying the human body 3000 years ago and it is still studied and practiced today. That’s longevity. 

Perhaps we should be using Chinese medicinal practices as an alternative to pharmaceuticals? I went out-of-my-box because I could afford to go out-of-my-box. But there are not the number of lobbyists for acupuncture as there are for pharmaceutical companies. It is seldom covered by insurance although the years needed to be an acupuncturist are many, the knowledge they have is great, and the work they do is important. They are licensed and understand the human body and the many influences, emotional and physical, which impact us. 

In this month of MAYhem, I am forever grateful to Sarah, for her knowledge and for her profession.

Resources:

Hinrichs, TJ and Barnes, Linda L., Chinese Medicine and Healing

Kaptchuk, Ted J., The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine

Wiseman, Nigel and Ellis, Andrew, Fundamentals of Chinese Medicine

Staring down the barrel, feeling the heat

By JoAnne Young

I would call it a full-body experience. I would say it's not coming a step closer to the edge, but the expunging of it ... a changing of the very idea of power.

 

I thought this first experience with firing a gun would be merely an out-of-the-box experience. It turned out to be an encounter with raw force – the kind that can be wielded with a finger but can transform things physically, mentally, emotionally, politically, even ethically, morally. 

When talking to a fellow writer about the idea, he invited me to accompany him and a few friends to an indoor shooting range. I considered it long and hard. Guns have become larger than life in our culture, and so politically charged. I really couldn’t turn it down.

 

So I met them one morning in April at Big Shots, a range in Lincoln, watched a short video on gun safety, filled out a form and waited for the action. I wandered around the store area, out of the realm of anywhere I’d ever been ... big and small guns everywhere, ammo, equipment, Second Amendment wall art and NRA slogans. 

A couple of dogs – Frankie and Spankie, a corgi and a lab --brought a tiny bit of comfort, but not as much as it turned out I needed. 

 

Then it was go-time. I put on my ear and eye protection, chose a paper target and followed the five men I came with to an outer room, nervous and unsure what to expect. I thought about the theme of the mythic hero's journey, in which the main character leaves the ordinary world and ventures into the unknown to overcome obstacles and challenges. 

In no time I was standing in lane No. 5, my friend and instructor by my side, and the shooting by those around me began.

 

The first eight shots were fired in 38 seconds, and I jumped each and every time, feeling dumb but not able to stop. A .22 caliber pistol fires at 157 decibels. Noise levels above 85 decibels are considered hazardous to human hearing. The threshold of pain is 130 decibels. It was more than the sound, though. It was the jarring of my body, the abruptness of the intrusion. 

 

“It’s loud, isn’t it?” someone said. “The first time I did this I couldn’t believe it. Nothing in the movies or TV makes you appreciate how loud it is.”

   

I tried to focus on the task. But all I could think of, every time a shot rang out, was what it would be like to be in a classroom, or a mall or grocery store or movie theater and to hear that sound of the firing of a gun. Those people must have jumped, too, but with the terror that if that bullet didn’t come for them, the next one surely could. 

 

When it was my time to fire the pistol in my hand, it made me weak. I aimed it toward the target, a simple shape of a human, thinking I could hit where I was pointing. Instead, I couldn’t tell where I was even aiming for sure. I know with practice people get a better aim, a better knowledge of what they are doing. But I kept thinking about what happens to that resolve and decision making when a person is in a high emotional state.

 

By the end of the half hour, I had pulled the trigger on a Heritage 2-inch barrel revolver and 3-inch revolver, a Sig Sauer .380 caliber pistol, a Smith & Weston .357 caliber revolver with an 8-inch barrel, and a .38 caliber “Detective Special” revolver. 

I was relieved to head to the door. I would call the experience one of the most intense I’ve ever had. 

 

The most astonishing thing I learned? A .22 caliber bullet can travel more than a mile, 900 feet per second, which is three city blocks. Launch an AR-15 and the distance is four times that, 12 blocks in a second. 

 

I understand that many people grow up shooting from the time they are young, on the farm or hunting with a parent. It’s entirely within their comfort zones. It’s considered recreation. 

 

I also understand that if I didn’t fear guns before, I certainly do now. 

I have read the accounts of trauma surgeons of what a fired bullet can do once inside the human body. Firing at that paper target, aiming for the area of the heart, I could feel it from a different perspective. 

 

Not too long after this experience, I found out my 8-year-old granddaughter was on her playground at a Denver elementary school when a fugitive with a gun ran across the property while being chased by police. My daughter and other parents didn’t find out about it for about four weeks and the police report giving more information was not released. Now my daughter has become an activist, trying to help persuade the Colorado legislature to pass an assault rifle ban. She’s getting involved in movements to protect kids and others from gun violence. 

 

I am proud of her. 

 

I needed to have this experience. But it changed me, in its intensity, in what it exposed about power, and the grief it left inside me for so many people. 

 

I hope to continue to have these out-of-the-box experiences, to leave my comfort zone maybe monthly or more often. 

But I have to tell you, my trigger finger ... she's no longer feeling the itch. 

Follow 5 Women Mayhem on Facebook and read this month as we get out of our comfort zones for this month of MAYhem. 

 

 

 

 

 

Random Thoughts on Boxes...and Mayhem

 By Marilyn Moore

Savanna liked being in a box.

A collection of boxes...some hold treasures, others are treasures as they are.  One plays music.

Boxes aren't always four-sided.  Some don't have sides at all, at least, not in the way "side" is defined in geometry.  This box, which looks like a hat box, actually held a lovely tea set.  You have to look inside the box to see what's there.

When you google "outside the box," you get 1.85 billion responses in 0.72 seconds.

There are seventeen pages of quotes about boxes on BrainyQuotes.  The first page has 13 quotes from women and 47 quotes from men.  Do men think/write/talk about boxes more than women? Or are they perhaps more frequently quoted?  In those quotes, "box" sometimes refers to the sport of boxing, or to a cereal box.

My favorite of the quotes:  "I like to say it's an attitude of not just thinking outside the box, but not even seeing the box." Safra A Catz

Sometimes a person is trapped inside a box by what's outside the box...it may look, or feel, like mayhem.  But sometimes, instead of feeling trapped in the box, it may feel safe.  When that happens, the box's name is probably something like "home," or "friendship," or "love."

Sometimes the mayhem is inside the box...and it smothers....

Sometimes, people place those they see as "Other" inside a box, restraining the other's personal liberties and humanity in some way.  It's hardly ever good for the other. (Perhaps I'm thinking of legislation proposed, and likely to be passed, by Nebraska state senators this year.)

"Sandy in Defined Space."  I wonder if Sandy feels protected by boundaries and firm edges, or confined by boundaries and firm edges.  While in a defined space, she's also exposed to the elements and swirling mayhem around her.  I wonder if that feels scary, or if she's glad to feel the openness.

"Floating Figure."  No box here.  No name given, but definitely female.  I wonder if she feels free, open to all that surrounds her, or if she wishes for protection....

What happens to a brain in a box?  And it is more stifling to have your brain in a box than to have your body in a box?

"Brain in a box" and "aging" presents a conundrum.  The older one is, the more neural pathways have been created by experiences, so the more ways the brain has to learn something new.  Unless...the neural pathways have hardened, like clay that has been fired, and there's no room to expand for a new idea.

What if you turn the box, or more than one box, on its edge, and use it as a foundation....

In the physical, geographical, geological world, I'm an out of the box person.  Literally.  I'm a child, daughter, and, now, elder of the prairie.  My soul thrives and is sustained by wide open skies and an endless horizon.

"In the box," geographically and geologically, is frightening.  My stomach clenches at being in small spaces, my heart beat quickens, and terror is close to the surface.  Especially in spaces that are under--under ground, under water, under a glacier.  Deep inside the glacier, under 35 meters of ice, is the most "out of the box" thing I could do, because it put me in a box.  Worse still would be deep sea diving...which I think I will never do.

Savanna liked getting out of her box and stretching out in the sunshine.  She was good at knowing where she needed to be and putting herself exactly there.  She had a keen sense of self-awareness.  That's a gift.  And a metaphor, I think....

Sometimes metaphors work, sometimes they don't.  The same may be true of this blog.

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Stepping into a prom dress … and out of a box

A note about our month of MAYhem: We’re celebrating by stepping a little closer to the edge, maybe even a full-body experience outside our boxes and comfort zones. Here’s to the rebels, the rule breakers, the bits of disorder in all of us. Enjoy the MAYhem with Mary Kay, Marilyn, JoAnne, Mary and Penny as we abandon our strongholds for a few minutes, a few hours, even a day or more to live and learn and share it with you all. 

By Mary Kay Roth

I never went to my high school spring prom.  As a senior, I helped decorate the school gymnasium with hundreds of spring rainbows to match the theme of Colour My World, but in the traditional cast of characters portrayed in every high school movie, I was the shy, nerdy, kid – the one who doesn’t get invited to dances.   

Honestly, I didn’t mind. Except for one thing.  The dress.

Every spring since high school, I would wistfully catch sight of all the young women, strolling around the Haymarket on the evening of their proms, swathed in glitter and glam.  

And that’s why, earlier this week, just for kicks – after my granddaughters helped me shop at Goodwill for my very own $20 prom dress – I pulled on that sparkly, sequined gown and wore it for an entire day.

The morning started, of course, with my usual sunrise walk around Holmes Lake.

“You must have had some great night,” one jogger quipped with a wink.

“Definitely a different look for you.” 

“Whoa …”

“OK, I’m sure there’s a story here.”

After the walk, the dress stayed on – strolling around downtown Lincoln – shopping for groceries, where a couple women in line asked if they could get their prom dresses and spend the day with me – twirling around the front lawn with my granddaughters as we exploded into outrageous, bubbling laughter.  

You see, I grew up in a loving family with supportive parents, but with a mother who believed spontaneity was absolute taboo. When sentiments reached a certain threshold, common sense and reason moved in … because, after all, you could always read a good book.  And if you ever dared to let go or lose control, well, the world just might crack open and fall apart at the seams.  

Hence, when our Five Women Mayhem writers were challenged to do something curious this month and experience our blogs in a different way – reaching outside our box, outside our comfort zone – I considered the scandalous prospect of letting loose, letting go. 

Believe it or not, this didn’t come easily.

I’m guessing most people see me as the person who rockets down the slip-n-slide, chats with strangers, soars above the Serengeti in a hot air balloon.  

The truth is I can never quite loosen my grip.  I overthink. Stay safe. I’m hanging onto that hot air balloon for dear life. And sure, I can boogie around my living room, but find it terrifying to say yes to the sweet guy who wants to spin me around a dance floor.  

Ever since childhood I’ve had this one recurring dream: As rocks rain down upon me, I’m scaling a mountain, finally reach the top and peek over to the other side where a beautiful, inviting meadow awaits.  Yet I continue to keep a ferocious grip on that mountain. 

I wake up.  Having never let go.

In all honesty, that prom dress hung on a hanger in my bedroom for weeks as I procrastinated … in serious danger of chickening out. Then, one random morning this week, as the blog deadline neared, I shimmied into the sparkles – added glittery earrings and a huge fuzzy red coat (chilly outside) – and headed for Holmes where my friend Bethany met me with laughter. 

“This might seem stranger if it wasn’t you,” she said.  

Indeed, I did hike Holmes that morning in a prom dress – then took a walk around the Haymarket where I had watched all those fancy gowns pass by – eventually met my granddaughters for a promised date to skip through the sprinkler.

The real surprise, of course, was that my dress was only the beginning, because once you get out of the box, well, you can’t really put that genie back. 

The girls and I brushed our teeth, standing on one leg.  We all traded seats and sat in different places in the living room.  We found the silliest possible hats to wear.  We danced the chicken dance.

Somehow – the grapevine in our family is fierce – my niece, Holly, heard about the prom dress and begged to let her do my makeup.  So, this hippie woman who seldom wears anything but lip gloss, finally succumbed and even allowed the addition of – gulp – fake eyelashes.

I read a story in the New York Times, earlier this spring, specifically addressing The Joy of Letting Loose.  It spoke of the cop who takes a break from directing traffic to groove for the camera – the lady in the business suit who can’t help but hopscotch down the sidewalk.

“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit,” the article concluded, quoting E.E. Cummings. 

Right now, however, I need to pause my blog for a moment of confession: I have worried about writing a column fixated on something as silly as a prom dress.  It seems rather inconsequential in a world where the sky is falling and so many important issues plague our lives.

But I also fear that if we miss the joy, we will miss the point. We will miss the wonder and surprise of touching something authentic in the human spirit,  those moments of total surrender – of exploding into outrageous, bubbling laughter.  

The true magic that happened on prom-dress day was not about any response from the outside world, but about what happened inside, where those outbursts of zaniness stirred something deep, a place of wild abandon that had always seemed just out of reach.

Today, almost anything seems possible.  Perhaps I could actually learn to tango. Step up to the microphone for karaoke. Finally write my book.  Forget Holmes Lake, hike the Camino de Santiago. 

At the close of my prom-dress experiment, dusk settled over the evening for a final sunset walk, eyelashes off, sequins strewn here and there throughout my house.  I’d successfully spent the day in tinsel and glitter, a day of letting loose. 

The world had certainly not fallen apart at the seams, but there was undeniably one big, glorious crack in the box that surrounded me, letting in light and joy … and perhaps even the promise of a spin around the dance floor at a high school prom.