The Magic of Massage

I had a massage today. I love massage, and it's something I rarely indulge in, but we had a Groupon, so I tried a new place. It was great. A one-woman show. She had small but strong, blunt hands.

Normally, when I'm getting a massage I think a whole list of I should statements. I should go to bed earlier. I should drink less. I should get up earlier. I should eat more yogurt. I should do more yoga. It's a litany in my head.

I did that today, but I also had a very specific thought about what I actually need from a massage therapist. I need a witchy woman.

Massage therapy has been sanitized, made clinical by spa culture in the United States. I'm not saying I want a dirty massage. But the decor is pretty standard: light blues, grey and taupes. Soft piano music or something that sounds like waterfalls. Zen looking gardens. Rocks. No smell stronger than lavender or maybe vanilla.

I would love to walk into a dark red or purple room. With things like gold elephants and stars. Wtih a moon hanging from the ceiling. I want sage sticks or patchouli or amber, rising in actual smoke.

I want a woman draped in weird fabric, with wild hair and big hands. I want her to be older than me. I want her to spend a long time on each limb, and to notice what's there, but never tell me. To know that I work with my hands.

I want exotic music. Indian or African, nothing sterile and relaxing. NO YANNI, OK? I want to feel entranced, enchanted, and when she's done, I want her to tuck me in, like I'm a kid going to bed.

She'd make us tea afterward, and read my fortune. Not my real fortune, and nothing like You will meet a tall dark stranger, or You will travel faraway. More like, she sits me down and tell me what to do with my life. When we sit, I notice that she has little stars and apples woven into her hair and they are silver. She never doubts me and she doesn't take any shit from me. She has a scar through her lip. Her tea is wicked strong and black and when I leave there, I feel soft and altered, but charged up for something else.

That's what I want. Monthly if I can get it. If you know where, message me. I think she probably doesn't exist.

Morpho Peleides

I've decided to sell my china. It's not a complete set, only some pieces, and I feel detached from it now. Years ago, however, after we got married, I was taken by Portmeirion's Botanic Garden pattern. It was English, and included not only butterflies and bees with the plants, but also the Latin names. At the time, I was reading a lot of A. S. Byatt, whose novel Still Life, includes a chapter called "Names of Grasses," listing both the English and Latin names. In many ways, the novel acknowledges the power of naming. Byatt says herself,
 

I had the idea, when I began this novel, that it would be a novel about naming and accuracy. I wanted to write a novel as Williams said a poem should be -- no ideas but in things (Byatt, Still Life, 323).

And,

That summer Marcus had a vision of the world as a globe marked out not only by flowing stripes of water and huge nets of roots, sliding sands and towering rocks, but by a kind of human love, not grabbing, not consuming, not even humanizing, but simply naming the multidinous things to be seen, for the sake of seeing them more clearly (Byatt, Still Life, 322).

It's hard to step back and simply call things what they are, simply name.  I wasn't a china girl; I was more of a Chinet girl. We eloped. We were not in the category of couples who register and get china, or crystal, or fine silverware. When I look back, it's amazing we made it. Everything was an idea bigger than us. It's hard to enter into that, headstrong, and have the courage to simply name it. Someone might have named it dumb.

The Chapel of Love, Las Vegas

I wasn't raised in a culture of fanfare. Most of my attempts at ceremony, at celebration, at recognition were met firmly with an acknowledgment of my place: last. And in the mid-90s, I wasn't looking for a traditional wedding, in fact, had it been expected, I might have rejected the offer. I would have been happy with the rebellion of scaling back, of marrying outside the church, of wearing something not white.

But that's not who we are. My own parents were married in a courthouse, and truth be told, they probably would have advised me to do the same thing. Somehow, without much forethought, I saved us the uncomfortable You don't really want a wedding, do you? conversation, and eloped before it became much of an issue. I wouldn't trade the elopement. It was perfect. There was only us. It was only $200: pictures, flowers, limo and video included.

My rebellion is often reactionary. I wanted to go to church, and not just go -- but be confirmed, to be official. I wanted at least that recognition. I wanted to the pressure of going to college.  I wanted to rebel by going to college for something I loved, not something that was practical. I wanted someone to know that I loved something, more than anything. I want to use the good china on holidays, and dress up. I want a tree with lots of lights, or two trees, as we've done for the past few years. I wanted ceremonies for my kids. Baptisms and First Communions. So they would know just how much they matter. Because we do matter. As Phil Memmer says in his poem, "You Are Worth Many Sparrows,"

      We matter that much. We matter
      that much, at the least.

They will rebel, of course, against fanfare. want to wear beanies at the table, or eat at TV trays in the living room. (An option not yet presented to them, but boy, if they knew they could.)

It's who they are.