Checking My Pulses
Searching for a magic elixir for getting older
I was sitting in a dusty storefront in Boston’s Allston neighborhood last Friday, facing a middle-aged Chinese-American man across a paper-strewn desk. My right arm was extended, and then my left, as he checked my pulses –- a key measure of health in Eastern medicine. As he carefully checked a series of these pulses in my wrist, the herbalist, a well-known local named BJ, made a series of notations using Chinese characters. Though I can’t read the language, I knew those notes reflected what I’d already told him; I was dealing with a series of medical issues: low energy, dry eyes and restless sleep.
My primary care doctor, whom I’ve seen off and on for the past 15 years, hasn’t provided much help, and so I trekked back to BJ’s, where his assistants concoct a variety of formulas or “teas” designed to treat what ails the steady stream of clients –- young and old, from every ethnic background –- who cross his threshold.
After my litany of complaints, (or a basic recitation of the facts, as I prefer to think of it), BJ noted the year of my birth — 1957, and said, “Well, you are over 50,” as if that explained everything.
“No, you don’t understand,” I whined. “I’m a high-energy person, and this isn’t normal for me.”
