Psychosomatic

This is going to sound a little nuts. (But...hey! If you are one of the few who reads this blog regularly it'll be nothing new.) These connections will probably seem tenuous, at best. But they're a couple of things I've noticed that seemed worth mentioning.

I've found that there have been a couple of people to whom my body responded to in weird ways--physical manifestations of emotions that I was feeling.

One of these was P. It took some time, but I found that when talking to him--particularly after specific endearments were said and the little girl in me who was hungry for reassurance wrapped them around her like a shabby but warm and comforting patchwork quilt--a part of my body started to hum.

I know. I know how that sounds. But I'm not even kidding. It began as a tickle in the base of my throat just above my chest and expanded into a full-fledged vibration. It started only in response to his words, and then began to also emerge when I simply thought about him.

At first it was alarming. It felt so loud and blatant to me that I would look around on Muni, wondering if others could hear this strange phenomenon taking place within my body. No one ever seemed to. Eventually with the demise of that communication, the humming stopped and has not been seen since.

The second and more recent example is not as exciting, but still interesting to me. (And likely only me, but whatever.) For years I have had this small hard bump just under my skin on my upper right arm, just below the shoulder. It's been there for at least four years now and started before I ever moved to San Francisco. It appeared suddenly. At first I thought it was a blemish, but it never changed. I messed with it all the time; I wanted it gone. I showed it to Chris and made him touch it with his finger. ("Weird," he said. "Go to a dermatologist.") As you may have guessed by now, I never did anything about it.

On the morning after meeting J.T. last week, I was scratching my upper arm and noticed that this bump was gone. In it's place was a small scab. I couldn't believe that, after all that time, it had vanished as quickly as it had come. I assumed it was destined to be with me the rest of my life.

As of this morning even the scab is gone. All that remains is a small dark mark, a reminder of what used to be there and now is gone. All my worrying and fussing with it amounted to nothing--it left when it was ready. There is no more hard bump; all that is left is smooth, soft skin.