BLOG # 24-"THERE ONCE WAS A CROOKED MAN WHO LIVED IN A CROOKED HOUSE"

There once was a crooked man who lived in a crooked house and dear readers, there is a woman with a crooked smile who lives in my house and that woman is me!  We all know the Mother Goose rhyme about the crooked man in the crooked house with his crooked cat and now I am the woman with a crooked smile though no cat.  Today my theme is about “Alignment”. This is a very fashionable word at present- my car wheels need alignment, all our “central cores” need alignment-observe my daughter practicing her Yoga for alignment, my grandson, a serious rower doing his demanding “core exercises” towards alignment, to say nothing of the very popular “Pilates” and the meditative Alexander techniques -all of which in my long life I have attempted not too successively to do. But now I have to work on a new and completely unexpected alignment.  I have, of all things, a crooked jaw!   When I open my mouth to it’s greatest extent my face is crooked and I look not unlike Marley’s Ghost   This disconcerting knowledge of my nonalignment all came about because I was having earaches in my right ear and a marked inability to open my mouth widely..  When I told my dentist he sent me to a “jaw physiotherapist”, a delightful man who joyfully asked me to open my mouth widely while looking in a mirror.  To my horror my mouth listed grotesquely to the left -not a pretty sight.  Evidently I have been clenching my jaw thereby weakening my left jaw and tightening my right one. Now I have a whole new exercise program to add to my busy life involving many tongue depressors and crooked yawning exercises to straighten myself out so I won’t resemble the crooked man.  I even have photos of myself with twenty tongue depressors clenched in my mouth that my thoughtful daughter captured on film. The whole point of these difficult and comic exercises are to help me realign my jaw and return my face to it’s normal pleasant appearance.  I do these exercises four to five times a day and while I do them I contemplate .the importance of good alignment not only on my jaw but also in a more broadening sense, especially on the world stage where poor alignment is so apparent and  so crucial to correct.  The real area where alignment must be seriously considered is in the imbalance of the “haves’ and “have nots”

Now, there is an area where we really need a good alignment physiotherapist- a compassionate enthusiast like my physiotherapist, to straighten everything out. Unfortunately, on the world stage this isn’t really as successful as the straightening of my jaw.  What usually happens is someone with good intentions makes a few attempts at alignment this works for a short period and then even worse imbalance occurs and crookedness takes over. Of course, speaking of crookedness, I need to mention briefly “Politics” Now there is an area where Straightening out is essential- but I won’t go there, instead I will say goodnight and “good alignment”.