I am forcing myself to write this, because no one else will. I worry I’ve forgotten how to write well, and if you, the reader, will make sense of this piece. Maybe if you don’t, I will chalk it up to lost poetics. I don’t know if I even like writing anymore after my degree in Comparative Literature, but it’s an impulsive, demanding, and beckoning act to me. I knew I couldn’t make money off of it long-term after I threw up from the first check I received for writing, and after my thesis, I let myself not write, distanced myself from the identity of “writer.” To be fair, I’ve had little time to write till now, as I pivoted to acupuncture of all things.
Life has been non-stop, all gas, no brakes, fun, and exhausting all at once, since I began my graduate program. I feel silly in calling my education that sometimes, like it gives a false sense of legitimacy to studying this cultural medicine, that is traditional Chinese medicine, compared to the rigor of law school or a PhD in biochemistry, even if it factually is called a graduate program. That is not to say I haven’t poured hours of my life and put my sleepy brain cells to work for sometimes 14 hours a day, but it feels wrong to attempt to box in such an elusive art under a number of units or a degree title.
If I have learned anything in this season of my life, it’s that my school is cursed and this medicine, at its best, is a burst of sunlight that beams through these points we needle into and warm with herbs, something that refuses to be contained. I like that each teacher has a personal, guiding philosophy to this act and that at our mastery level, there’s 1,000 ways to treat one disease, though the true sage can treat 20 diseases in one way. I’ve been afforded a new lens through which I scrutinize everything in my life; we crave sweets when we are busy thinking and worrying to give the taxed Spleen an energy boost to transform and transport those rambling thoughts. Isn’t that neat?
Maybe some of it can be verified through peer-reviewed, clinical research, and maybe some of it you just must feel. After all, so many of my classmates only found this medicine through a personal injury or illness that forced them to understand the capabilities of our practice.
I am lucky that I grew up with the guiding hands of my family nourishing me from the teachings of Chinese medicine, with our soups, salves, and acupressure massages. Gonggong, I miss you and I wish I could treat you now.
Trying to do this cultural inheritance justice will take a lifetime of practice, but God-willing, it is what this life will allow me to do.
I quit my barista gig to make room in my life for the final hurdles of school. I’m elated to say that! No longer will my hands burn for your lattes, as now they will only burn from moxa. Soon, I will be treating patients all on my own. In about one year, I will take a total of 5 licensure exams, both for California and Nationals. I’m incredibly nervous and afraid to fall short, but this is the beaming ray of sunlight that I’ve been chasing for all these years.
The goal is to chronicle the end of this journey for you, an acupuncture student like me, because as I’ve stumbled along, I so desperately wished to find comfort in the words of fellow travelers on this same path. I hope it brings you that.
“Forget Self. Benefit Others.” - Shudo Denmei
Yuming