Simon’s headaches began when he was 30. At first he’d have one every other month or so. The pain wasn’t disabling but it was annoying, and the condition didn’t respond to any over-the-counter analgesics. He’d wake with a slight headache, like a pulling where a headband would be on a girl, and he’d have the ache all day and take it to bed with him that night, no matter what capsules or tablets he downed.
When the headaches began to come at least every month and to last two or more days and nights, Simon paid attention. He tried different remedies. He thought it might be dehydration, so he cut out salty foods and drank more water. No change. He figured it might be hunger, or caffeine withdrawal, or his bad neck, so he tried food and coffee and massage, to no effect. He charted his theories and experiments and reactions on his computer. Then he went to the doctor.
They blew out his sinuses with saline. They X-rayed his face and did a coronal CT of his head. They prescribed Vicodin and he enjoyed the sleepy powerful feeling it gave him, the way it made even Monica’s TV shows interesting and actually led to a gratifying romp with her on the hall runner one night when she came home glowing from an evening with some business colleagues. He remembers her looking almost as beautiful that night as the first day he met her. But the Vicodin didn’t dent the headache.
Finally, last year, he was referred to Debra.
She has a small business in the Laurel district in San Francisco. She offers her own combination of yoga, Pilates, massage and meditation, and she lives in a flat above her business. She provides private and semi-private sessions; Simon began seeing her weekly in private, and fell into love as he fell out of pain.
Debra has dark curly hair, freckles, and a firm boyish body. She’s two years older than Simon: 35. She taught him to stretch. She showed him how to elongate his body. She described his heart so he could recognize it, and they aimed to radiate around it. As a result of their interwoven dance Simon began to look inside himself. When he looked out again, his vantage was wider. Added. “Add-vantage,” he said to Debra, and she breathed laughter into his mouth.
Simon had a linked revelation recently. He woke nine Saturdays ago to the fact that his headaches were over. He was riding his bike alone when it occurred to him that he hadn’t had a headache in nearly three months and that his head felt different — clearer, lighter — in a way that he knew he wouldn’t have those headaches again. It hadn’t been his neck, although learning to stretch didn’t hurt. No: he was sure it had been his ridiculously narrow focus. He had wonderful binocular vision, and he’d been wasting it through windshields, TV sets, the frames of computer monitors. He was born for panorama.
He returned home breathless with exertion and epiphany. He wanted to talk it over with Debra, but he had to get past Monica first. She was on the deck. With Max, the realtor she’d used for the two houses they’d bought so far. Monica had been talking about another trade-up for some time and at first Simon figured that was why Max was sipping gin & tonic at the railing. Then he relaxed his eye muscles and let himself see. He wondered how long Monica and Max had been an item. He said “Hey” to them both and turned back into the house for the phone, for Debra, for the night.
The second half of the revelation came when he took Debra in his arms. He put his mouth against the top of her head, on her curls still warm from sitting on her porch watching the sun set, and he concentrated on the sensation of her torso in his hands, the curve of her breasts against his thumbs. She pulled her head away from him to look in his face before kissing him deeply, and then she told him she wanted his baby.
Simon almost melted with happiness. He became excited about his life. He went to Monica the next morning and announced the obvious. She acted angry. Said she’d take him for all he was worth. That made Simon chuckle. He was thinking then that with a bit more time and a lot of grace, he might be worth something.
He’s giving it all to Monica. The house and the cabin and every little framed window. Simon got away with his future. He now works three days a week and spends the rest of his time looking around.
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