In every relationship there comes a time in which the massage exchange goes from foreplay to work. Gone are those days where we used to massage each other for the simple reason that the other person's shoulders were in our field of vision. The urge to have any excuse to touch one another is no longer needed. Though I was prepared for this shift, it was proven even more difficult with the fact that my husband must be the planets only living person who hates to be rubbed.
Massages are something he has only asked for from me twice ever! Both times when he was in serious pain. I, on the other hand come from a long lineage of people who hold all of their stress in their shoulders, and at the end of most stressful days you can almost see gumball sized knots at the tops of my shoulder blades.
I do everything to try to avoid this pain that comes natural. I do yoga five times a week. I try ibuprofen, but sometimes a girl just needs a rub. This month has been extremely busy for me and my work and my gumballs were turning to baseballs. After asking my husband several times in a week for a massage and was met with the inevitable eye roll and sigh, he finally told me he would buy me a proper one from a professional. I was over the moon!
There is new massage chain that has opened on the main strip just blocks from my house. I gave them a call, and it seems that they were doing a promotion for a 90 minute massage for $58. I booked the appointment.
I arrived freshly showered and with no contacts in or makeup on. I was ready to do some relaxing. I meet my therapist and I am very skeptical since when meeting her hand for a shake, it felt like a dead fish. This did not bring confidence that she had the stuff to battle the baseballs. Non the less she showed me to my "room". I love how they called them rooms when we all know they are cubicals at best. I also find it funny that they always tell you to undress to the "level that you find comfortable". I wonder if anyone ever gets under the sheet in their pajamas, or simply remove their shoes. I am not shy, or particularly modest. I majored in figure study in college. So down to all natural I go. However, I was a little surprised at the very short time she gave me to do this, almost catching me in a position I only plan on my husband and the cats ever seeing me in. I quickly got under the sheets.
As she began I was thinking, "Okay, time to relax!" I took a very deep breath and was pleasantly aware that Vivaldi' "Spring" was playing on the sound system. I thought to myself, this is so nice! I love classical music and so prefer it over all those nonsense "relaxation" sounds. This was a thought I wish I had not had!
Immediately following Vivaldi began ocean sounds. This is very distracting to me. I know that most people love the beach, but having spent a lot of time in Florida the beach to me is not relaxing. Most of the time they are dirty. It takes awhile to get there. Then it rains. There is sand in every fashion of the word. You smell of dead fish and your skin if sensitive like mine, is dry, burning and rashy from the salt.
"Okay okay, focus! The ocean is beautiful! Just pretend your are at a nice roof top pool NEXT to the beach." I get my head back in the game and am enjoying the massage. After all it could be worse. It could be pan flutes......."Crap."
As the pan flute...song? begins my mind begins to explore who in the world thought that pan flutes are relaxing anyway? When I was a kid I remember going to Cahokia Mounds and being a little creep-ed out. I had a real hippy friend in college that practiced paganism and went to sweat lodges and all that, and it was not glamorous. She always smelled, and seemed to have the worse luck in the world. I mean God love the Native Americans and all, but all the rituals and dark spirits crap, when did people decide this belonged in a spa? Pan flute song ends. Thank God!
I am crossing my super relaxed phalanges that the next song is classical again. That was way to much to ask. It was my third worse fear. Sounds of a babbling brook.
"Great!..Great! Half an hour into the ninety minutes and I have to pee!" Plus I clearly have some sort of water issue. The sound of it running makes me think of three things. One, I have to pee. Two, the toilet is running again. Three, is the beach or drowning. I am at this point really trying to coach my mind. "Just ignore the music and sounds. Try to go to sleep."
A nice acoustic guitar begins. This is what I am talking about. It's a little folksy but that's okay. I will transform my mind to the hillsides of the Ozarks or..damn! Pan flute again! Really?! In what world does pan flute and acoustic guitar even sound good to someone? The song ends and I am longing for the days of beach sounds.
Next song is a nice piano ballad. Sounds beautiful. This is what I am talking about! The therapist asks me to turn over and as I do I hear the breathy low whistle again. I begin to picture the recording studio where all this music was recorded. I picture the pianist an Asian man in a tuxedo. The guitar guy with a long grey hair pony tail and dirty blue jeans. And the pan flute a full blooded Cherokee Indian with full head dress and peyote eyes. They all talk to the recording engineer and true the already racist thought I was having, the Native American guy will work for half what the other guys will per hour. So he just plays on everyone else's record.
It got more and more comical as the following songs would begin with a harp followed by the pan flute. Drum solo followed by pan flute. When the pan flute came on over a saxophone I actually laughed out loud. The therapist apologized for tickling me. I didnt have the heart to tell her it wasn't the massage, it was their atrocious taste in music.
All in all I did really enjoy the massage, but people come on! I can't be the only person in the world distracted by this nonsense. I will probably go back there someday, but this time I will be armed with an Ipod full of Bach, and Coltrane! Although I'm not positive, but I am pretty sure they never made a piece that included a pan flute.
No comments:
Post a Comment