Tuesday, February 28, 2012
March Marina TIMES - Enjoy!
Enter Stage Left: A New Coast
Life is sweet in this relaxed neck (of the woods)
March 2012
Life is sweet in this relaxed neck (of the woods)
March 2012
Hey guys, I started going to a bio-geometric integrator.”
“Oh good! Well …. welcome to California!” my S.F. friends reply, laughing companionably.
They actually know what that is – bio-geometric integration – or at least are willing to recognize whatever it may be and its place in the culture here.
If I was back in NYC and announced, “Hey guys, I started going to a chiropodist,” there would be silence. My NYC friends would smile, but wonder why I’d bothered to share. They wouldn’t say “Welcome to Manhattan!” as a comment on the urban culture we all shared, though they certainly could have, given the miles of daily pavement pounding we all did. They’d be more likely to say “Welcome to Manhattan!” after hearing a horror story of the pushing, shoving and lack of courtesy on New York sidewalks. Or hearing tales of a bad cab driver. And they wouldn’t laugh.
But here? I speak of the healing pleasures of this integrated chiropractic approach, BGI, and with a rueful smile of self-recognition, every one of my fellow San Franciscans said “Welcome to California!”
Unstated: “Where else but here, right?”
But it goes deeper, this willingness to try more holistic approaches to physical problems. I love S.F. for that.
Back East, I had good experiences with traditional chiropractors. Often faster and more effective than traditional doctors, my chiropractors were vital to my routine as I tried to stay strong for an eight-show week at Les Misérables, or whatever show I was doing. Broadway performers sustain injuries often, due to rigorous staging, fatiguing schedules, and the increasing use of raked scenic platforms. In Les Mis, climbing the second act barricade caused injuries like clockwork. The center stage turntable alone was responsible for more diverse injuries than you can imagine. Midtown chiropractors worked at breakneck speed to keep us healthy. I recognize the irony of “breakneck,” but so it was. They were our MASH unit, our medics on the front lines of the performance wars. It was the chiropractor’s job to do a quick assessment, a practiced wrench of adjustment, electric stimulation, soothing heat, book a follow-up appointment, and throw us back on stage.
I always wondered how the body could heal so fast. Now I know it was only partial healing. The “tip of the iceberg” pain might have been alleviated, but there was deeper, rooted pain remaining in the muscles and bones; pain I might not have felt then, but pain that was building up until, one day, I would feel it.
But here? This new approach, at the same time gentler and more probing, is a symbol of our new way of life.
I walk into Dr. Eric Rubin’s studio at North Point Chiropractic Clinic and discover (in the words of Susan Brown, who started BGI in 1988) that “the art of chiropractic is much more than the application of a technique or an introduction of a force. It is a melding of substance and being!” I experience this how? By first talking with Dr. Rubin about who I am and what my life is like. Then, this gentle man observes how I walk and move. I relax on a padded table. He puts his hands on my back, reads my body like Braille, sends me palpable gentle energy, pushes a bit here, prods a bit there, and things move in my body that I’d forgotten could move! I feel deep layers of tension dissolve. Pain floats up and drifts away. The earth seems to shift under me, but only because I’d been standing crookedly on the earth for so long.
I was made to feel profoundly better, easily, quickly. It felt miraculous. It felt like “a synergistic flow beginning toward growth and evolution” (again, Brown’s words and God knows what they mean, but I felt it). I walked back to my car, laughter bubbling up inside me, and I felt, once again, grateful to be in this city.
Left Coast living gets better and better.
As I floated out of North Point Chiropractic Clinic, euphoric with relief, the smell of sweet, magnificent chocolate wafted by. Right across the street? Ghirardelli Square. I mean, come on! My relaxed body felt a craving, my mouth began to water, and soon I was sitting in front of a large cup of rich, warm cocoa. I felt each sip as much as tasted it.
I do love this town. A view of the bay, my body in healing mode, and chocolate! I felt so good I told them to spare the whipped cream. Who needs it? I’ve found bio-geometric integration, and it’s not nearly as fattening.
“Oh good! Well …. welcome to California!” my S.F. friends reply, laughing companionably.
They actually know what that is – bio-geometric integration – or at least are willing to recognize whatever it may be and its place in the culture here.
If I was back in NYC and announced, “Hey guys, I started going to a chiropodist,” there would be silence. My NYC friends would smile, but wonder why I’d bothered to share. They wouldn’t say “Welcome to Manhattan!” as a comment on the urban culture we all shared, though they certainly could have, given the miles of daily pavement pounding we all did. They’d be more likely to say “Welcome to Manhattan!” after hearing a horror story of the pushing, shoving and lack of courtesy on New York sidewalks. Or hearing tales of a bad cab driver. And they wouldn’t laugh.
But here? I speak of the healing pleasures of this integrated chiropractic approach, BGI, and with a rueful smile of self-recognition, every one of my fellow San Franciscans said “Welcome to California!”
Unstated: “Where else but here, right?”
But it goes deeper, this willingness to try more holistic approaches to physical problems. I love S.F. for that.
Back East, I had good experiences with traditional chiropractors. Often faster and more effective than traditional doctors, my chiropractors were vital to my routine as I tried to stay strong for an eight-show week at Les Misérables, or whatever show I was doing. Broadway performers sustain injuries often, due to rigorous staging, fatiguing schedules, and the increasing use of raked scenic platforms. In Les Mis, climbing the second act barricade caused injuries like clockwork. The center stage turntable alone was responsible for more diverse injuries than you can imagine. Midtown chiropractors worked at breakneck speed to keep us healthy. I recognize the irony of “breakneck,” but so it was. They were our MASH unit, our medics on the front lines of the performance wars. It was the chiropractor’s job to do a quick assessment, a practiced wrench of adjustment, electric stimulation, soothing heat, book a follow-up appointment, and throw us back on stage.
I always wondered how the body could heal so fast. Now I know it was only partial healing. The “tip of the iceberg” pain might have been alleviated, but there was deeper, rooted pain remaining in the muscles and bones; pain I might not have felt then, but pain that was building up until, one day, I would feel it.
But here? This new approach, at the same time gentler and more probing, is a symbol of our new way of life.
I walk into Dr. Eric Rubin’s studio at North Point Chiropractic Clinic and discover (in the words of Susan Brown, who started BGI in 1988) that “the art of chiropractic is much more than the application of a technique or an introduction of a force. It is a melding of substance and being!” I experience this how? By first talking with Dr. Rubin about who I am and what my life is like. Then, this gentle man observes how I walk and move. I relax on a padded table. He puts his hands on my back, reads my body like Braille, sends me palpable gentle energy, pushes a bit here, prods a bit there, and things move in my body that I’d forgotten could move! I feel deep layers of tension dissolve. Pain floats up and drifts away. The earth seems to shift under me, but only because I’d been standing crookedly on the earth for so long.
I was made to feel profoundly better, easily, quickly. It felt miraculous. It felt like “a synergistic flow beginning toward growth and evolution” (again, Brown’s words and God knows what they mean, but I felt it). I walked back to my car, laughter bubbling up inside me, and I felt, once again, grateful to be in this city.
Left Coast living gets better and better.
As I floated out of North Point Chiropractic Clinic, euphoric with relief, the smell of sweet, magnificent chocolate wafted by. Right across the street? Ghirardelli Square. I mean, come on! My relaxed body felt a craving, my mouth began to water, and soon I was sitting in front of a large cup of rich, warm cocoa. I felt each sip as much as tasted it.
I do love this town. A view of the bay, my body in healing mode, and chocolate! I felt so good I told them to spare the whipped cream. Who needs it? I’ve found bio-geometric integration, and it’s not nearly as fattening.
EVALYN BARON is an actress, director and teacher who worked on Broadway and in theaters across the country. Here in San Francisco, she’s finally getting some writing done. E-mail: evalyn@marinatimes.com
Labels: Marina TImes columns
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Tribute to Richard: February's Marina TIMES
Enter Stage Left: A New Coast
Mighty redwoods I have known
February 2012
Mighty redwoods I have known
February 2012
Richard Laurence Baron would have adored living in San Francisco. He might actually have considered moving here from Houston with his beautiful wife Barbara, and that’s the highest compliment I can pay my new hometown. He’d never have moved to New York City. Visit every now and then maybe, if business necessitated or I was in a play he wanted to see, but live there? Not a chance. NYC is a violent place, and my brother was a gentle man.
Had they visited here, though, they would have been as enchanted as Peter and I are by everything San Francisco offers to people who are smart, engaged in life, enthralled by natural beauty. They would’ve been as avid as we are about discovering the City’s hidden treasures, unique neighborhoods, wondrous cultures, because Richard adored exploration. Of new places, new people, new beers, new books, new adventures. My dear brother was fascinated by life, and San Francisco is a town filled with it. Brimful, in fact. A quality Richard would have immediately recognized, relished for its pace, and embraced in his wonderful arms.
That is, when he managed to pull himself away from the many richly laden, independent bookstores he’d have located first. Books were important to Richard. I never knew a man who loved even just the smell of them as he did. When his dear Barbara finally does come to see us here, our first outing will be to the bookstores. We will discover them together, the ones I love, the ones I’ve yet to find. The ones Richard would have led us to.
Also, whereas New York City has its heights, its figurative mountains to climb, their steely artificiality represented to Richard man’s striving for things he never thought to be important: money; ambition for its own sake; grabbing for, getting and keeping all one could, no matter how useless; and all the pushing and shoving it took to get those things. San Francisco’s natural heights, on the other hand, its glorious hills, would have matched Richard’s idea of what soaring truly meant. A city like San Francisco exists in the sheer, magnificent space it takes to contain a man with the spirit the size of my brother’s. He would have felt good here because of that alone.
We’d have taken a bountiful picnic up to the Marin Headlands and sat on top of one of the old army bunkers – which Richard would have been able to tell me the story of, since military history was another love of his. He’d have stood tall – he was 6-foot-5 after all – stretched out his long arms, and included the Pacific Ocean in his wide embrace.
“My name is Ozmandias, King of Kings …” he’d have recited out loud. “Look upon me, ye Mighty, and despair!” Shelley was one of his favorites.
New York City would have hemmed my brother in too much for him to have lived comfortably there. When he did visit, he’d spend time in the darkest corners of the Natural History Museum and the Egyptian Wing of the Met.
He’d attend his required business meetings, then snuggle down in front of our fireplace to read, planning his next museum jaunt. But nowhere in that city would he have felt like reciting poetry out loud. Here though? I can think of many places that would have inspired him to burst into spontaneous recitation. At full voice.
And he’s the only person I knew who’d have made a dent in the enormous height of the trees in Muir Woods. Those trees would have felt his remarkable hug, and Richard would have felt as if he was among honest friends in the presence of those awesome redwoods. Tall things understand each other, and my brother was tall in every way.
My darling brother passed away a few days before the turn of the year.
But it gives me enormous joy to visualize him and Barbara living here with us. Enjoying the great cafés, getting to know the local wines. I soothe myself with imagining he’d have loved that.
I do know that Richard would never have wanted to live in NYC. Though he visited when he needed to, it was never a city congenial to his spirit and heart. It was too hard, too fast, too selfish. And Richard was none of those things. I was the selfish one. He was the patient, the kind, long-suffering older brother, and now that I have an entire new and wonderful city to share with him – to give him with my whole heart – he is gone and I cannot.
I will, however, think of him every day and imagine him here, in this town I love so much.
Labels: Marina TImes columns
