Body Workers

In lyric vignettes that follow the author from childhood to an academic career, from massage therapy to physical therapy to acupuncture treatments, from California to Massachusetts and through the Midwest, this essay shapes an embodied self through touch, paying particular attention to the forms of healing but also insult and intrusion that can happen when we seek relief, understanding, and respect from others. The essay’s fragmented structure mimics a body sometimes experienced as “dislocated” and in pain, fashioning a new coherence that resists the imperative to be whole.