#11: Maura and Katy Try to Relax

It’s Friday night, and my friend Katy and I are at a party. I’m nursing the second-worst glass of wine I’ve ever had in my life while we shore up the details for tomorrow’s Spa Day.

Katy, a consummate planner, has a big question. “So this Caribbean body treatment,” she says. “What is it, exactly? Do we know? The description doesn’t really explain.”

I shrug, choking on the horrible, horrible wine. “Don’t ask.” I say. “I didn’t start to really think about it until this morning. I’m sure it’s nothing crazy, but who knows?”

“So we could end up in a room full of women covered in nothing but seaweed and Saran Wrap.”

“Nooooo.” I laugh dismissively. And then a bit more timidly, “But maybe? We’ll be fine. It’ll probably be dark, right? If parental discretion is advised, we’ll just have to face it like big girls.”

So we laugh again. Nervously. I discretely pitch the unknown wine to seek out a better glass, and end up with an equally terrible Chardonnay.

~*~

(google image)

The spa is dark, and thankfully no public nakedness is involved. Just a robe and soothing music, plus sheets and thick blankets pulled tightly across a massage table.

Massage table? Oh no, no, no, no.

Instantly, I’m very unhappy.

It’s not just by chance I’ve never had a massage. The whole idea of strangers + my skin makes me cagey. Who knows why. It’s a trust issue, I guess. Like flies in my face, I just start swatting.

If this Spa Day weren’t a 36×37 assignment, I’d walk away. Instead, I distract myself by focusing on the robe I’m supposed to wear. It’s not one of those fluffy white lovelies you see hanging on the heated towel racks at the W in downtown Chicago. Instead, it’s just a rectangle with snaps along one edge. I wrap it around me like a towel and hope for the best.

My masseuse, Elizabeth, enters the room.

“Is this right?” I say, motioning to the robe and smiling to hide my discomfort.

“Yes, that’s right,” she replies. She laughs then, and pauses like she’s trying to decide if she should explain herself. Then she whispers slightly, “I’ve seen people put them around their necks like a cape. That’s awkward. One woman even asked me what it was. I’m all, ‘it’s a robe?’”

Elizabeth laughs like crazy at her own story, so I do, too. Gawd, I’m so ridiculously embarrassed.

Even so, I hop up on the massage table and slide under the thick purple blankets. Then I settle in and will myself to relax.

“I’m going to take you on a sensory journey,” Elizabeth says. “I’ll introduce one fragrance, and then another, and another. Tell me which one you like best.”

 She swipes a drop of oil upward from the bridge of my nose. It smells like juniper and mint. A hint of rosemary. “That’s #1,” she says.

#2 smells like coconut oil and Mai Tais. #3 smells thickly of vanilla cupcakes. I choose #1.

So she mixes the oils with some “essential minerals” to make a brown, juniper-scented compound. Then suddenly she pulls on a pair of exfoliating gloves. “Welcome to the Caribbean,” she jokes as she digs into the blades between my shoulders.

The gloves feel like sandpaper. Sandpaper. Sandpaper. It’s all I can think about, if you want to know the truth. Between the abrasive circular motion, the aroma therapy, the soothing Asian stylings of the pan flute, and my abnormal levels of ticklishness, I’m suddenly struck with the urge to start giggling. It’s a nervous habit I perfected during the Sunday Masses of my youth, and it’s one I can counter with sad, sad thoughts. The next thing you know, I’m mentally rehashing the final scenes of The Last Station, a great 2009 film about Leo Tolstoy and his complicated marriage to the Duchess Sofya Andreyevna Bers.

That does the trick.

So at least now I’m quiet. But I’m starting to itch. And I’m really not enjoying myself at all.

Until.

Elizabeth wraps my feet in damp, heated towels. Then she drops another towel across my back. “You may meditate now, if you’d like,” she whispers. “Think warm, soothing thoughts. Breathe cool and resting breaths. I’ll be back soon.”

Gasp! This sweet, sweet heaven! I think. Comfort, thy name is heated luxury! And five seconds later, I’m sleeping.

~*~

When all is said and done, I meet Katy in the relaxation room. She is smiling and flushed, her dewy, beautiful skin fully exfoliated and refreshed. “Do you think that’s how the stars wake up every morning?” she says. “With cleansing breaths and warm towels around their feet? Is that how Britney Spears wakes up from her hangovers?”

If it’s not, it should be. It absolutely should be.

Katy leaves for a bridal shower, and I opt for a simple pedicure. The nail tech isn’t much of a talker, so I settle happily into a book review from last week’s New Yorker.

I keep thinking about how this—my feet in a giant tub of scalding water—is probably more my speed. Warm feet, flawless, pretty toenails, and an hour to read whatever falls in my lap.

~*~ Find me on Twitter @36×37
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#11 is coming: Just Relax, Will You?

On a conference call a few weeks ago, a colleague spoke to me with such a tone of disrespect, I nearly lost it. But since losing it isn’t exactly my style, especially in the workplace, I retaliated the only way I knew how: dramatic pause, overly calm but pointed reply, mute button so I could quietly mutter obscenities, followed by an angry stomp through the atrium for a cup of soothing Starbucks coffee.

It wasn’t enough. Not nearly.

That’s when I texted Katy.

“Still up for some Spa Day action?”

She said she was. Enthusiastically.

So that’s what we’ll be getting into tomorrow at Aveda. If you don’t have a shrink—or even if you do—sometimes you just need to pay someone to be nice to you while they cover you in some strange Caribbean body treatment.

Added August 30 – Mission accomplished! Read the full story.

~*~ Find me on Twitter @37×37
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Side Story: The Squid, the Appendix and My Mother

My Mom, 1964

My mother is an attractive woman. Quick wit. Vivacious personality. Eyes bluer than they probably have a right to be. People comment on those eyes all the time, and it makes her uncomfortable. She never blushes or bats her eyelashes at her admirers; instead she just changes the subject.

Children and animals love her, too. They see her, they hear her voice, and they race straight to her. Suddenly, she’s awash in bright eyes, huggy arms and wagging, thumping tails. They’re simply drawn to her. That’s how it is. Everything about her seems like home.

I’m thinking this on Thursday while she’s talking. And I’m chiding myself for being surprised by the bomb she just dropped across this phone line.

~*~

I receive an e-mail at 2PM, with this quick note: “Call me when you have a chance.” My mother is brief when she writes, but rarely as brief as that, so I know she must have something important to share. I pass the next three slow but busy hours on conference calls. Then I nervously dial her number at 5:30PM.

We chat for a bit before I cut to the chase. “So I got your e-mail,” I say. “What’s the scoop?”

“Oh. Right. Well, I went to the doctor today,” she says. “I need to have my appendix removed at the end of the month. I guess there’s some sort of thing on it…benign, according to the biopsy, but my doctor has seen a few things like this lately, and he says they’ve turned out to be precancerous. I could get a second opinion, or we could wait six months to see if the thing changes, but why risk letting it turn into something we don’t really want to deal with down the road? You know? I agree with what he’s suggesting: we’re taking it out.”

Right. I see.

Even benign tumors love my mother. 

~*~

You’ll notice I’ve classified this post as a “Side Story” rather than a “First.” That’s because my mom is no stranger to the benign tumor. Her doctors found another one two summers ago, after she stopped by the local Urgent Care with complaints about dizziness and neck pain. When those doctors ran tests for the neck problem, they found something unrelated and completely surprising: a small, squid-like mass in my mom’s cerebrum.  

She spent two days in the hospital. While her doctors ran more tests and consulted each other, she quietly asked an old friend (a world-renowned children’s brain surgeon) to take a look at her CT Scan and MRI. In the end, all of her doctors agreed that the tumor was benign, with no signs of growing or changing. They assured her the tumor is harmless. It has probably been there for years.  

So these days, she sleeps well at night while that yucky thing sits in her brain. She’s not troubled by it (or at least, if she is, she has never said so). But to me, the tumor seems like a handsy 17-year old: it wants to test the waters to see how much it can get away with. It has even gone so far as to invite its lazy, good-for-nothing friend to pop a squat on my mother’s appendix.  

What draws these things to her? Is it her eyes again? Because I might just make her wear sunglasses to put an end to all this business.  

~*~  

I remember visiting my mom in the hospital two summers ago. I showed up with a care package of snacks and magazines and crossword puzzles, not to mention my own false pep and overwrought anxiety. I talked non-stop to distract her, and after 30 minutes, she very gently asked me to leave. It hurt my feelings, but I understand her now. Although I had very good intentions, my nervous energy served only to make matters worse. So much worse.  

And now: “I wanted to talk to the doctor first before telling you anything,” she says. “I didn’t want to worry you. You know. And it’s just my appendix. No big deal.”  

“Mom, you should have told me,” I scold. “I’m a big girl. I don’t freak out about these things anymore.”  

“You’re freaking out now,” she points out with a laugh. And she’s right.  

~*~  

For the record, I don’t like these tumors and their flirtations. They make me cagey. Suspicious. Overprotective. I wish I could play this out like an intimidating dad on prom night: Sharpen my kitchen knives as the tumors approach the porch; ask them confrontational questions about their intentions; wait up until midnight with a baseball bat to chase them away when they’ve outstayed their welcome. Even so, I think they’d come back and sneak through the window. My mom’s a gracious hostess, after all, and these tumors know a good party when they see one.  

But the more I think about it, the more I wonder: If, God forbid, my mom ever did have a serious health condition, how much would she tell me, and how would I react? Would she protect me by cutting me out of her experiences and keeping things hidden? Or would she tell me the truth so I can gather my resolve and protect her for once? Because I know I could. I’ve learned from the squid in the cerebrum.

More importantly, though, I know we could do battle side by side. We’re both tough girls when we need to be. If anyone can beat back an ill-worn suitor, it’s my mother. And if anyone loves her enough to help her do it, it’s me. 

~*~ Find me on Twitter @36×37
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