Rough Terrain

Adrienne Fisher | May 09, 2008 | 0

When a human makes contact with rough terrain, it is truly life changing for both the terrain and the explorer.

This excavator takes a deep breath. The terrain does too. They begin to breathe in tandem-rhythmically indistinguishable from one another. He is an explorer looking to carve out his way across this land one millimeter at a time; not with tools, but with with his own bare hands, his elbows, his forearms, his feet, his shoulders and his brain.

He starts with an increase in temperature. The land becomes more supple as the environment climbs a few degrees toward that of an equatorial forest's climate and less toward the chill of the tundra.

He starts to break up the surface turf. He doesn't have the luxury of a John Deere machine, so he uses his fingers with as much strength and precision as the wheels of a rotatiler. His smile is the result of the challenge presented from the rocky mountains and circuitous, unpredictable pathways. He smiles a lot. This land is tough, but he knows there is value. This land proves to be enigmatic, but this thrills him and feeds him to make him stronger and more able to conquer the land.

He presses down lightly on the terrain with his elbow as if giving it an initial litmus test-a test that will tell him much about the property and how it needs to be worked. He shallowly percs the land gently with his elbows in twenty five places. Each elbow perc giving him more history about this piece of God.

The first five percs tell him that this turf is not too old, but there is some history that could be really interesting if he digs deep enough.  The next five tell him that there is definitely something valuable beneath the first layer, but he must be patient and work the land slowly so as not to destroy a valuable piece of this province's life story. The next five imprints that he makes on this domain with his elbows say, "There is life in me".  The next five percs say, "There is magic in here, too, you just have to be patient." And, the final five exclaim, "It is now time to go deeper and start to see just a glimpse of the truth of this land".

So, he goes deeper-now with his entire arm. He uses his forearm like a rolling pin to massage the land like dough on the stroke down and his elbow goes much deeper than before on the stroke up almost creating an irrigation system with his elbow pattern. He now puts on the hat of archeologist.  He has found something. It is fairly large. This could be an exciting discovery, but he remains patient knowing that moving too fast could ruin everything. There is quite a bit of tough terrain surrounding this object. It could even call for dynamite, but he is from the simple school of "do it with what you your mother gave you, and you shall reap the greatest rewards", so he will use his own flesh and bones. He puts all of his concentration into his elbow as if he were an immortal creature about to shoot lasers from it, and he forces his elbow down into this piece of land. At first with a light pressure, but the pressure increases rapidly as he feels his elbow successfully breaking through the rubble.

His elbow makes contact with the bulbous object, and he starts to polish it in circular motions as if it were a magic lamp. A magic lamp that he is eagerly prodding so that the Genie will come out because he knows exactly what his three wishes are. He wishes, firstly, that this land will be free of rocks in less than a year, secondly, that this province will bear fruit, and thirdly, that this rough terrain will respond positively to his hard work so that this land will call on him again and again. Upon the land's beckoning, he shall return anxious to resume elbow deep where he left off.

His name is John Howard. All others in the field of massage therapy for dancers pale in comparison.

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