Self Massage Techniques from Cleo

If You Can't Be With the One You Love, Be the One You Love

Today, I received a call from Jennifer who said she is part of a Grief Group. She wanted to know how she could share my video, “Massage for Relaxation,” with the group.

She had recently seen the trailer for this 1985 vintage instructional video on Vimeo and thought it was “beautiful” and that it could help her group on their grief journey.

I told Jennifer that I, too, had suffered immense grief after my “little” brother and best buddy, Joe, died. His death was parenthesized by the deaths of my father and my mother. Both parents were elderly and “ready” to depart, but my brother’s death came as an unpleasant surprise. It was a long slog through the five stages of grief as sometimes they’d gang up on me all at once and I’d be reduced to a bawling mess.

These days, my brother and parents are “in” me, always with me. I understand that, although of course, I sometimes find myself wishing I could reach for the phone and talk to them and hear their voices.

I fired up my editing array and created this video focusing on the Self Massage Techniques and a Glowing Salt Rub from “Massage for Relaxation” the world’s first massage instructional tape, that I produced in 1985. It was my premise then, and continues to be, that touch is a human necessity. And when you do not have someone nearby to give you the touch you need, then heck, do it yourself.

“Cleo” is my “stage name” and so please join youthful me on a time trip back to 1985. If you can’t be with the one you love, then be the one you love.

In conclusion, I’d like to share two of the poems I wrote during the time of my worst grief. Writing has always been my greatest exercise of “exorcising.” And writing poetry has been my deepest pleasure.

Grief and His Harley

Are you over it yet?

It’s been months.

So it stands to reason

that you have slipped,

sleek as the slim hull of

a racing sloop

through tumultuous grey

waves of grief. 

We adapt.

Life is short. Carpe

Diem.  So are you

over it yet?  Now

that he’s gone, his

memory vanished like

contrails after clouds

move in, obliterating

sun though you know

it’s still up there

by the burnt naked

red.  Are you over it?

Over it yet? 

I held on

to his Harley

boots, his black leather

vest, a small urn

of his coarse ashes.  I see

him when I look

sidelong in the mirror.

He was my best friend

for half a century,

the sibling who could

understand how

I felt, we touched

each other’s wounds

gingerly, the scabs

we both pried at, jaws

clenched.  So,

Are you over it yet?

Grief trods along

its own Path, fox-

tails collecting at the

ankles, barbed

annoyances you must

bend to address.  Are you

over it?  Are you?

Over it yet?

 ###

Grief the Thief

Grief runs around like a thief in stocking feet.

You think he’s done his dirty business, months ago

taking off with a stack of your favorite record albums,

that secret box of truffles and the ceramic box

Dad gave you, and that he wouldn’t have the temerity

to show up again and hack more meat off your heart. 

But then he does.

He grins as his straight razor gleams in a reflection

on his glossy teeth. 

### 

Patty “Cleo” Mooney is a San Diego video producer. Alongside her husband, Mark Schulze, she has co-helmed San Diego’s longest-serving video production company, Crystal Pyramid Productions (est. 1981), since 1982. She is an avid mountain biker, travel adventurer, story-teller and poet.