Mexico and New York are distinct in many aspects. However, they are both among the largest cities in the world bringing along commonalities of metropolitan life, holding status and stratus within their fabrics. Each city is a mecca, the black hole of each respective country, sucking people in from around. I'm going to detail the grain of each city, from my perspective. Now, I lived in Manhattan for six years and have lived in the Distrito Federal (DF, pronounced day-efay, AKA Mexico City) for only four months.
New York, the world capitol full of sophistication, whom turns her back on ignorance may be familiar with London or Paris, but knows little of it's bigger sister here in America. I remember deciding upon potential cities in which to live and work while in New York. A brown haired beauty, a yoga practicer and former world model commented on Mexico City, "No, don't go there, it s super sketchy, you don't want to get kidnapped." The danger added to my appeal and here I reside.
The mystery and danger imposed upon Mexico may have a veritable reputation. For example, there are different types of taxis to take here, the libres with a reputation of kidnappings with forced ATM robbery. Friends of friends say they know someone who has been robbed in these green VW bug taxis. I take these often. A colleague warned of her friend, robbed by gunpoint while driving, but sitting in traffic. This is said to be commonplace. The advice is to keep the windows closed. Another collegue and his wife walked to school the same route that I take. They were robbed, rumor is by gunpoint, but they didn't have money and ran away from him. They live to tell about it. By contrast, a friend was jumped in the subway in New York, they broke his jaw and he was stitched up in the hospital. I too was jumped, at a bar on the LES, and healed after 12 stitches to the face. Violence happens in big cities.
The vibe of these monster cities is very different. NYC has imposing buildings impressively stretching into the sky. Her skyline is jagged and enormous, the people hundreds of stories below scurry cramped on the sidewalks. NYC is constantly buzzing, high on coffee and cocaine, speed. As the sun sets the lights of the skyline draw you in. You yearn to be a part of the rapacious thump of the night where all your miscreant thoughts are possible.
Mexico City sprawls, encapsulated by the widespread mountains like an atoll. The flat drained lake, the grey city formerly blue, pops sienna coral along the perimeter. The mountains select visibility based on the urge to overcome the everpresent car exhaust. It fights to maintain a seeded naturalness in which the aloe plants breath through concrete, the earthquaken sidewalks. When the moon shines, crickets present themselves in the lull of cholesterol traffic.
NYC is a chameleon changing with the seasons. Humidity stifles the frenetic energy, when buidings in Tribeca and Spanish Harlem sweat with the thickness of blood, like the bodies on vacation in Sheep's Meadow and sunbathing on the Christopher Street Pier. Winter wind tunnels make you swear that you ve got to get the hell out and never come back. Apartments freeze, fingertips freeze, cheeks freeze, and a Noreaster thaws the truculent cold with blankets of snow, allowing the moan of the city to silence. People play and cars go away. When the sun shines, the snow begins to melt, thawing is sole trickery because it will freeze, and then it tricks you again, when you step off a curb into a dirty ice puddle, what you thought was ice.
The steadfast climate in Mexico City is less extreme. In August, it is a chilly summer like San Franciso, with sun rather than fog, sweatshirts at night. The next few months during rainy season, water deluges from the sky for hours, forcing you to detour under doorways while stranded without an umbrella on a walk for groceries. This fall, freak ice storms hit the city, tearing down leaves and clogging sewer systems to flood city streets a foot above doorways. October concluded rainy season and the most splendid sunny days now grace the city. Mornings are cold, producing visible breath above scarves, but the sun warms the valley, and you feel why the palm trees survive.
New York and Mexico City delivers that which affects the people residing within. They are each a cavern, dually protecting and endangering his and her citizens, however different.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Monday, November 06, 2006
On Chiropractors
I have never been to a Chiropractor, not until yesterday. Negative things I have heard are that chiropractors are quacks, their practice is fake medicine, and they'll paralyze you by cracking your back to heart attack. I m not sure where I heard this because I don't know anyone that regularly visits a chiropractor. Here is my new experience.
My Sunday began with a simple appointment for a sports massage as my muscles ached. The office is a small corner space in a two level colonial era building across from the coloial era, tree lined divide. The office is small, quaint, and slightly absent-minded-professor-like with several devices for the body; a lever stretcher to lay on which sees and saws upside down, a chair with a mechanical massage cushion, homeopathic medicine jars, and posters showing chakra like points on the body.
The Mexican man with small hands and friendly eyes, the Quiropraxia, began with a check up. I sat on the examination table, and he said to look at his forehead. He shone a light in each eye as and diagnoses flowed from his mouth that shocked and frightened me: his quick diagnosis was right on. En espanol, "You have a very bad intestinal problem, your lower back has many problems, your upper back, and testes too. Your heart is in pain." I looked at his third eye, shuddered, and wondered what else he knew about me by looking in my eyes.
I ve had intestinal problems for the last 4 1/2 weeks, beginning with the ameoba in Acapulco. "Treated" by an MD with enough antibiotics to peel off the inner layers of my body like an orange. The antibiotics finished the same day as my visit with partial success. My lower back striates from a seat at my desk and the lower muscles around my spine are overworked and sore. My upper back is knotted all the time, wound so tightly like a walnut inside a ball of yarn. ANd the testes, well, I m not in a relationship, which is also causing lonliness. He pegged the most pertninent problems of my being in the first minute of the examination!
He also looked at my hands and said some more things that a doctor can't possibly know by examination. My trepidation became projected slightly, doubting that that this man could know. What else does he know? What is he not telling me?
My skepticism drained as he told me how he could treat my wan body. He would give me a sports massage, and then use different pressure techniques with a suction, and then he would use needles on various pressure points. He didn't have to sell me, I knew the Quiropraxia was clairvoyant. During the therapy of needles, I asked him, "How did you know my problems by looking in my eyes?" He replied as a scientist, it is a science.
"Did you study in Mexico?"
Espanol, "Here in Mexico, yes...with a German and there were other Germans, Americans, and Mexicans studying." I looked at a body chart showing energy connnections along the body.
I left feeling more certain this practice was more science and less psychic. I departed with homeopathic remedies for my ailment: pills smelling like golden seal and vitamins. He said to come in Monday and Tuesday to complete the treatment of injections. The 40 peircings of injections into my muscles yesterday would continue the beginning of the week. I looked forward to it.
Now let's compare the chiropractor I saw Sunday to the stomach specialist I saw last Monday. The doctor had an enormous and prestigious office with expensive artwork and a desk that exuded power and money. The chiropractor works next to a Mexican cafe with plastic chairs and plastic printed table cloths. His office is full of chiropractic brick a brack. MD: 20 minutes/medicine=$200 US, CHIRO: two hours, homeopathic medicine=$250 US(including Mon, Tues treatments. MD: prescription I had to buy at a farmacia, CHIRO: Filled the bottles himself. MD: examination based on what I told him, "yes it is painful here", he concluded with a treatment of strong bacteria-to-death pills. CHIRO: initially diagnosed all my ailments with no verbal feedback and explained the process of treatment.
Day 2
Quiropraxia Jose Luis Guzman told me to come in any time after work, if he was working with a patient, it was fine. So I appeared today as a patient left. I sat on a dining room chair with a massage pad "to get my body ready for the injection." I sat as the Quiropraxia prepared liquids like an alchemist. I sat for a long time and was thinking, "How did he know by looking at my eyes with a light?" So I asked him. He said that the energy lines in the body form red lines in the eyes that can be read. Each line exacts the link to the ailment. Also, something about the opacity in certain areas of the eye can be read.
"Did you learn about reading hands in school or from your family?"
Yes, he learned it in school, but he knew that he had the ability to see beyond. This clairvoyant ability allows him to interpret the lines.
He sat down and looked at each palm. I sat vibrating on the chair leaning into the mechanical rollers down my spine. What would he tell me? His interpretations were incredible, and I had to again doubt the things he knew about me. I even accumulated a paranoid sense about what he read and did not tell me. He said that my right hand was easier to read, it showed my life as a child, until I was 18, more or less. He said many things and I wish my spanish was better because I did not comprehend everything he said. He again mentioned my heart and feelings. He asked but already knew, "Yes, did your parents have many problems? They did not have a good relationship. You are a leader. You have three paths you may go down, your left hand is not as developed as your right one," and he pointed to my shoulder and said something about the energy line. Looking at my left and then my right hand, "You will not get married. You know that you could. You will not get married but you will have a partner." I was wowed, it was difficult for me to comprehend and trust his accuracy.
These thoughts and decisions all lay in the palm of my hand? I respect this man and his spiritual, seeing capabilities. I believe he will lead me in a spiritual manner, or atleast help me to manage my body and emotions so that I do not have physical ailments. I would like to have such clarity of mind so that I don't have to excersize daily as a means of managing too much thinking or stress. Jose Luis suggested over and over to relax. Just hang within my own body. Think more about the happy times during my childhood. It's worth a shot.
I was injected into my right hip today, the left hip was yesterday. I almost fell asleep on the metro ride home from work. And after my consultation today, I was wiped out. I layed in bed lethargically, as if I breathed out emotion. Negative emotions, depressing and exhausted emotions. I became nervous about the energy moving within and about me. I felt shaken and somewhat distressed, yet I know it needs to happen. I fell asleep for a few hours and awoke in a slightly depressed and hypnogogic state. I think this is a process of cleansing, and now I am feeling still tired but less weighted.
Day 3
The denouement- the closing, though the treatments will continue. Today was my third successive day to see my cleanser, the Chiropractor. My temples ached from a full day at work. My head throbbed more as I approached the office. My apprehension and fear of being fully known to a new doctor, exposed, added to my headache. Fortunately, the atomosphere is relaxing in his office. I sat down. Next to me on the table, I examined the cross of Jesus laying on a chain, I think it was jewelery or rosarie beads. Unlike many doctors, he takes his time with patients. He is a healer and wants to help me feel relaxed without ailments and anxieties. I was given another shot in my hip to aid circulation.
Espanol, "How do you feel?"
"My head hurts. I have a headache." Motivated by kind interrogation I explained where. I sat in a chair as he expertly placed his arm around me in a headlock.
Espanol, "And breathe out."
Cackackacccack! My neck really cracked!
"How do you feel?" He asked. The tension had leapt out of my body with the bubbling cracks!
"Could you do the other side?"
He cracked the other side of my neck and I felt exponential improvement in my head. Now, I have come down with the ailment of debilitating headaches since the age of 11. I have learned to combat these; what I perceive to be temporal stress headaches, with excersize. I never relieved temple headaches in this manner. He told me with successive treatments over time, my body/mind well-being will improve. He responded to my question about working out in Spanish, "Ease back into the exercize routine, stay off it for now. Just try to relax for now."
Although this is the only time I have seen a chiropractor, I think there is a science and an art to this craft. My skepticism of my quiropraxia falls from me like sap from a tree, slowly oozing when shaken by prophecy. I m sure there are horrible quacks so out of touch with human well-being injuring patients as I type. However, I auspiciously stumbled upon a chiropractor with heart, a healer, one to give rapid prognoses, and regimented symptomatic relief.
My Sunday began with a simple appointment for a sports massage as my muscles ached. The office is a small corner space in a two level colonial era building across from the coloial era, tree lined divide. The office is small, quaint, and slightly absent-minded-professor-like with several devices for the body; a lever stretcher to lay on which sees and saws upside down, a chair with a mechanical massage cushion, homeopathic medicine jars, and posters showing chakra like points on the body.
The Mexican man with small hands and friendly eyes, the Quiropraxia, began with a check up. I sat on the examination table, and he said to look at his forehead. He shone a light in each eye as and diagnoses flowed from his mouth that shocked and frightened me: his quick diagnosis was right on. En espanol, "You have a very bad intestinal problem, your lower back has many problems, your upper back, and testes too. Your heart is in pain." I looked at his third eye, shuddered, and wondered what else he knew about me by looking in my eyes.
I ve had intestinal problems for the last 4 1/2 weeks, beginning with the ameoba in Acapulco. "Treated" by an MD with enough antibiotics to peel off the inner layers of my body like an orange. The antibiotics finished the same day as my visit with partial success. My lower back striates from a seat at my desk and the lower muscles around my spine are overworked and sore. My upper back is knotted all the time, wound so tightly like a walnut inside a ball of yarn. ANd the testes, well, I m not in a relationship, which is also causing lonliness. He pegged the most pertninent problems of my being in the first minute of the examination!
He also looked at my hands and said some more things that a doctor can't possibly know by examination. My trepidation became projected slightly, doubting that that this man could know. What else does he know? What is he not telling me?
My skepticism drained as he told me how he could treat my wan body. He would give me a sports massage, and then use different pressure techniques with a suction, and then he would use needles on various pressure points. He didn't have to sell me, I knew the Quiropraxia was clairvoyant. During the therapy of needles, I asked him, "How did you know my problems by looking in my eyes?" He replied as a scientist, it is a science.
"Did you study in Mexico?"
Espanol, "Here in Mexico, yes...with a German and there were other Germans, Americans, and Mexicans studying." I looked at a body chart showing energy connnections along the body.
I left feeling more certain this practice was more science and less psychic. I departed with homeopathic remedies for my ailment: pills smelling like golden seal and vitamins. He said to come in Monday and Tuesday to complete the treatment of injections. The 40 peircings of injections into my muscles yesterday would continue the beginning of the week. I looked forward to it.
Now let's compare the chiropractor I saw Sunday to the stomach specialist I saw last Monday. The doctor had an enormous and prestigious office with expensive artwork and a desk that exuded power and money. The chiropractor works next to a Mexican cafe with plastic chairs and plastic printed table cloths. His office is full of chiropractic brick a brack. MD: 20 minutes/medicine=$200 US, CHIRO: two hours, homeopathic medicine=$250 US(including Mon, Tues treatments. MD: prescription I had to buy at a farmacia, CHIRO: Filled the bottles himself. MD: examination based on what I told him, "yes it is painful here", he concluded with a treatment of strong bacteria-to-death pills. CHIRO: initially diagnosed all my ailments with no verbal feedback and explained the process of treatment.
Day 2
Quiropraxia Jose Luis Guzman told me to come in any time after work, if he was working with a patient, it was fine. So I appeared today as a patient left. I sat on a dining room chair with a massage pad "to get my body ready for the injection." I sat as the Quiropraxia prepared liquids like an alchemist. I sat for a long time and was thinking, "How did he know by looking at my eyes with a light?" So I asked him. He said that the energy lines in the body form red lines in the eyes that can be read. Each line exacts the link to the ailment. Also, something about the opacity in certain areas of the eye can be read.
"Did you learn about reading hands in school or from your family?"
Yes, he learned it in school, but he knew that he had the ability to see beyond. This clairvoyant ability allows him to interpret the lines.
He sat down and looked at each palm. I sat vibrating on the chair leaning into the mechanical rollers down my spine. What would he tell me? His interpretations were incredible, and I had to again doubt the things he knew about me. I even accumulated a paranoid sense about what he read and did not tell me. He said that my right hand was easier to read, it showed my life as a child, until I was 18, more or less. He said many things and I wish my spanish was better because I did not comprehend everything he said. He again mentioned my heart and feelings. He asked but already knew, "Yes, did your parents have many problems? They did not have a good relationship. You are a leader. You have three paths you may go down, your left hand is not as developed as your right one," and he pointed to my shoulder and said something about the energy line. Looking at my left and then my right hand, "You will not get married. You know that you could. You will not get married but you will have a partner." I was wowed, it was difficult for me to comprehend and trust his accuracy.
These thoughts and decisions all lay in the palm of my hand? I respect this man and his spiritual, seeing capabilities. I believe he will lead me in a spiritual manner, or atleast help me to manage my body and emotions so that I do not have physical ailments. I would like to have such clarity of mind so that I don't have to excersize daily as a means of managing too much thinking or stress. Jose Luis suggested over and over to relax. Just hang within my own body. Think more about the happy times during my childhood. It's worth a shot.
I was injected into my right hip today, the left hip was yesterday. I almost fell asleep on the metro ride home from work. And after my consultation today, I was wiped out. I layed in bed lethargically, as if I breathed out emotion. Negative emotions, depressing and exhausted emotions. I became nervous about the energy moving within and about me. I felt shaken and somewhat distressed, yet I know it needs to happen. I fell asleep for a few hours and awoke in a slightly depressed and hypnogogic state. I think this is a process of cleansing, and now I am feeling still tired but less weighted.
Day 3
The denouement- the closing, though the treatments will continue. Today was my third successive day to see my cleanser, the Chiropractor. My temples ached from a full day at work. My head throbbed more as I approached the office. My apprehension and fear of being fully known to a new doctor, exposed, added to my headache. Fortunately, the atomosphere is relaxing in his office. I sat down. Next to me on the table, I examined the cross of Jesus laying on a chain, I think it was jewelery or rosarie beads. Unlike many doctors, he takes his time with patients. He is a healer and wants to help me feel relaxed without ailments and anxieties. I was given another shot in my hip to aid circulation.
Espanol, "How do you feel?"
"My head hurts. I have a headache." Motivated by kind interrogation I explained where. I sat in a chair as he expertly placed his arm around me in a headlock.
Espanol, "And breathe out."
Cackackacccack! My neck really cracked!
"How do you feel?" He asked. The tension had leapt out of my body with the bubbling cracks!
"Could you do the other side?"
He cracked the other side of my neck and I felt exponential improvement in my head. Now, I have come down with the ailment of debilitating headaches since the age of 11. I have learned to combat these; what I perceive to be temporal stress headaches, with excersize. I never relieved temple headaches in this manner. He told me with successive treatments over time, my body/mind well-being will improve. He responded to my question about working out in Spanish, "Ease back into the exercize routine, stay off it for now. Just try to relax for now."
Although this is the only time I have seen a chiropractor, I think there is a science and an art to this craft. My skepticism of my quiropraxia falls from me like sap from a tree, slowly oozing when shaken by prophecy. I m sure there are horrible quacks so out of touch with human well-being injuring patients as I type. However, I auspiciously stumbled upon a chiropractor with heart, a healer, one to give rapid prognoses, and regimented symptomatic relief.
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