The time I accidentally got a full body massage
Putting the stress in stress relief
Personal space is not easy to come by in America’s largest city, and often enough, I find myself rubbing elbows, shoulders, thighs, etc. with my fellow citizens. Sometimes, my heart swells with fellow-feeling, and I think to myself what a miracle it is that so many people, from every possible background and largely pursuing their own interests, can live and work together in relative harmony. Other times, my heart shrinks perilously close to Grinch-like size, and I wonder if my seatmates are itinerant math teachers, attempting to demonstrate obtuse angles with their artfully splayed legs.
In short, I am not someone who gets too bent out of shape by the thought of close proximity to other people, but I am not someone who necessarily seeks out tight conditions. This is, perhaps, a product of my upbringing in New Jersey, the state with the nation’s densest population (not—to be sure—to be confused for the state with the nation’s densest people, a state whose name we are all thinking but that I will not say out of base commercial interest).
It was to my own considerable surprise then, that I recently found myself not only planning to be touched by strangers, not only planning to pay for the experience, but paying the sum of fifty-five dollars for an hour of being touched by strangers and—at the end—thinking to myself, pretty good deal.
Although I would not swear to this in a deposition, I vividly recall requesting a sixty-minute back massage. This seemed straightforward at the time.
The massage began in what I later learned was typical fashion—I was instructed to lie face down on a padded table, and to place a towel on my back. Having only experienced the wonders of massage vicariously through popular culture, I knew that I was about to experience either stratospheric stress relief (with the possibility of small cucumbers being placed on my eyes) or, if I’m remembering certain James Bond films correctly, I was about to experience being murdered by a foreign agent. Either way: pretty good deal.
A dark thought began to percolate as the masseuse began their courageous work. To the extent that I experience stress, I generally find it invigorating and focusing. What if my stress is structural? What if the stress has so spread through my body that—like termites—it has eaten away crucial infrastructure and taken its place? What if I experienced this supposedly cathartic release of stress and the masseuse pulled the towel off and I was a crumpled, deflated skin-clad mélange of mixed organs?
There was not enough time to focus on this, because—within moments—my anticipated back massage began, like a presumptuous house guest, to wander uninvited into other areas.
I do not, to be clear, blame the masseuse. I do not know how our understandings became untethered.
This, I thought, is really a pretty generous interpretation of “back.” A sense of uneasiness radiated throughout my body. My stress pulsed slowly back. The masseuse tested the boundaries of my back like a velociraptor testing a previously electrified fence. Uh oh. They say that if you raise the temperature slowly enough, the frog won’t realize it’s being boiled. Perhaps the masseuse knew this, perhaps not. By the time the masseuse was tucking the frog’s towel delicately into the frog’s underpants, though, there was no chance of it climbing out of the pot. I was going to be boiled.
Full body is, thankfully, hyperbole. But, dear reader, not by much. All of my nooks and most of my crannies were explored. My shoulders and back were massaged, of course, but so were my arms. My palms were squeezed. My fingertips were pinched and snapped. My thighs were squeezed. Inner? Outer? The question does not translate. The distinction is unknown to the full body masseuse. The thigh, in all its horrible circumference, is indivisible.
In retrospect, I scaled too quickly. This was, if I haven’t mentioned, my first ever massage. Going from neophyte to full-body was like free soloing El Capitan for my first hike. The idea of stress leaving my body was a grim joke. You could have removed every bone from my body and my stress would have held everything in place like Atlas shouldering the Earth.
Massages, I’ve decided are fine. For other people. For my own personal stress and anxiety, I will continue with the approach that has served me well thus far: ignoring them.
Notes:
Why did I write this? I had promised my wife a visit to the masseuse for several months, and was extremely proud of myself for finally booking it. Ah, a relaxing back massage, I thought. She’ll be thrilled.
What I’m reading: Still making my way through Doable Differentiation, which is useful and interesting! Otherwise, I read a good article from the December 18th New Yorker: “Sentenced to Life for An Accident Miles Away,” which talked about a “draconian legal doctrine called felony murder.” Basically: people get charged for deaths that are somewhat connected with different crimes that they committed, but the connection can be really tenuous. It’s bad!
Bonus Hog Slop: “Come on Man, Just Let Us Adore Him”—an article I wrote last year, published in Points In Case.