All of my life I've had healing powers, so much so that my mom (who likes to play skeptic) was forced to tell me so directly to my face. It's a huge "win" for me, but a severe loss in her magically passive-aggressive "Wonderland of Rightness", with rules according to "Dr. Diane". She pretty much had to, because I've nursed her through such severe injuries, breaks, falls, and surgeries, that there were times when, even in her delusion fantasies, she didn't think she'd make it back, going so far as to say to me a few times "I'd be dead without you". Fear not, New Yorkers; she'd lapse right back into snarky self-righteousness, right after I picked her up off the floor. Again.
In this century, we have companies with paid personnel who exist to help old ladies from their apartment floors and cloudy senses of reality, with such great hits from my mom like: "I was very athletic when I was young. You don't know!" Really? What did you do? "I walked bridges! I used to walk all the time." Yeah, I know. It's called "New York", not "Oz", and you were sixteen years old at the time, which means you should be able to walk a few miles, and you did it one time exactly. What else?
"No, no, no. I used to ski. I'm an excellent skier!" When? Once, on your honeymoon in the Poconos, so you could make fun of Dad comin' from broke-ass Bed Stuy because you knew he wouldn't be able to do a rich white man sport the very first time he put on downhill skis. Or, was it the time you tripped playing tennis and broke your back, which we nursed you back from? "OK. Let's change the subject. You're getting on my nerves." That's what I thought. Win all over it.
It's right up there with her superior sense of martial arts skills above me and my very-belted bro, because years ago I introduced her to Tai Chi while I was taking classes. I showed her a video I had on hand, and then I either gave it to her or bought her one of her own for Christmas, but, basically, my deal. She went home, found a "Bubbies-only" Tai Chi class in Westchester that's sit-down in a chair, then bragged to everyone for years about how "good" she was. "See? Look at me punch. Look, Marie! I'm really good at it! My teacher said so." Good at simulating punching...yeah, I know you like to hit.
Anyway, back to reality. Everyone in my family who's had direct contact with me gets healed. My cousin Susan beat Stage 4 lymphatic cancer, and she was the only one in her control group to do so. She chain-smoked cigarettes the whole time, too, much to my dad's embarrassment when he picked her up after her doses of chemo curbside, as a small bald child with a headscarf was wheeled into the facility. Wave "hi!" to them! She also beat the secondary cancers afterward, knowing the aggressive treatment she had was the cause.
Of course, it isn't magic. She had the right attitude, and she did everything her doctors told her to do (rare for her personality type), plus she was motivated to heal for her son, who would be orphaned if she died. Then, my dad had cancer. He beat it, too. Ditto with my mom and her sisters. Of course, they all used traditional Western medicine, as well as some homeopathic kinds, too.
It's become such an open thing with me that I don't even really try to stop people from making the connection any more, mystical guru powers aside. I made friends with an odd but friendly Korean lady who was taking martial arts at the same dojo. She really sucked at it, but she wanted to make herself feel better from both physical and mental symptoms, so she continued with it, despite an utter lack of focus, continuity, muscle mass, and talent. After she figured out that a few cheap kickboxing classes do not cure you from being a lonely orphan in a new country or painful sciatica, she decided to add into her already ridiculously over-packed life Acupuncture classes, at a professional school in Manhattan.
Over brunch one morning, she played with light conversational sparring techniques that are much more effective in Asia than New York City, where we knew all the flava's here, honey. By now, she knew I was some "big-time" Art Director in publishing, which meant her prior career as a commercial print-making designer for a Chinatown textile firm that fronted her the money to relocate here meant squat to me, though I was delighted to learn that she was artistic at one time. She then worked in massage (got that down, too) and her new studies at the traditional school of medicine that's part voodoo folklore mixed with some basic common sense.
After she cleaned her plate way faster than me, a sophisticated salad of greens perfectly dressed for summer, remarking on the deliciousness of the food in every restaurant I took her to during our brief friendship, she said to me that I should seriously consider becoming an herbalist at her school for Asian folk and their wanna-be's. After a few more outings with her, when I casually body-surfed expertly in an ocean she was afraid of and then schooled her in my 'hood, I noticed that she gradually distanced herself from me, in that way that I've come to know as the typically passive-aggressive Asian lady brush-off.
I could see that she didn't have much to come back with, and I didn't have the heart to tell her that my mom was one of the first female botanists at the Bronx Botanical Gardens, or that the devoted people of my faith have made real discoveries in medicine that are now worldwide cures, from the traditional abbey herbal gardens that span thousands of years. She wasn't listening to me, anyway.
Yes, my Asian peoples of the world: it's time to get over your "foreigner" fears. School is now in session! Please to enjoy the following links:
http://www.scienceinschool.org/2013/issue27/monastic
http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/medny/herbgdn1.html
http://bit.ly/1KpoTz4
