TheBanyanTree: From the Massage Table

[Monique Colver]

It’s cool and comfortable in the massage room, and from the massage table
the view is limited, but that’s fine because there’s so much activity in my
head I couldn’t really concentrate on a view anyway. Besides, my face is,
well, face down in the face rest, or whatever that thing is called. I think
about how relaxing it is to just lay there, with nothing to do, with nowhere
else I have to be for an hour, and of how no one can bother me, or provoke
me, or IM me with yet another problem. I could nap like that for an hour,
but at last the massage therapist shows up and begins her work.
	And work it is, for I am in even worse shape than last week. I am
tight, I am tense with unmet expectations, I am a knot of exasperation and
frustration. 
	There’s dialogue. In my head. While Gem tells me to relax (“Oh. I
thought I WAS relaxed.” “Well, you’re not.”) I carry on with the thought
processes that have successfully brought me this far.
	“What,” I say to myself, “will I do for money if I lose or fire all
my clients?” I’d like to fire them all, as that would greatly free up my
time and allow me to spend my days in more pleasurable ways, but that would
certainly limit my income, something I’ve come to depend on.
	“What,” Gem asks me, “has been going on? Are you stressed?”
	“Indeed,” I answer, my voice muffled since I’m still face down, “the
world is in danger of exploding upon itself, and it’s causing me endless
worry.”
	Perhaps those aren’t the exact words. We do agree that I am not in
particularly good shape. Considering I spent my morning in various IM
conversations with a variety of clients who were in various stages of
distress I am not surprised. Fortunately I can converse fluently in IM, even
using full sentences and proper punctuation, and can carry on four different
conversations at once. This is approximately four more conversations than I
can carry on in real time with real people who are more than words on a
screen. 
	Gem works while I lay there, only occasionally wincing, if by
occasional we mean on a more or less consistent basis. I’m a wreck and I
need work. 
	Internal dialogue: “I have to leave here, go get Shawna’s check and
her termination letter, meet up with Shawna, give Shawna her letter, write
her a severance check if she signs today, give her a final paycheck, then
report back to the CEO. Then I have to go back to the office and collect
things. (Not, unfortunately, fun things like butterflies and shells off the
beach, but papers.) Then it’s back to the home office to do a week’s worth
of work in the hour or so that’s left of the day, which of course will never
happen. I wonder what the weather’s going to be like tomorrow. I should be
in the office all day tomorrow. Maybe I should make a soufflé for dinner.
(Like, as if. That one I obviously made up.) I am so tired. Why am I so
tired?”
	Just then Gem asks, “How’s your thyroid?”
	“I don’t know,” I answer, unsure where she’s going with this. People
hardly ever ask about my thyroid. 
	“I just ask because I’m really close to it.”
	“Oh,” I respond, “as far as I know it’s fine,” though what I’m
thinking is, “Ouch! That hurts! Get away from it!” Because whatever she’s
doing, I think it involves ripping my head off at the neck. I can’t possibly
see how this could benefit me. On the other hand, she IS the professional,
and I am the one with the muscles like knotted rope. 
	I turn over at some point, and she asks if it’s okay if she touches
my face today. Being an agreeable sort I say yes, of course, not realizing
that she doesn’t mean touch my face, she means can she please try to
rearrange the bones in my face using only the pressure of her quite strong
hands, which is a different thing altogether, isn’t it? But by the time I
realize this, my facial bones are being manipulated into new positions
(perhaps I’ll come out of this with perfect cheekbones, I think hopefully)
and the only sound I can possibly make in opposition is sort of a mix
between “aahh” and “owrrww,” neither of which carries much meaning.
	Internal dialogue: “Ouch. Owwrrwww. Why do my eyebrows hurt?
Eyebrows shouldn’t hurt.”
	While stretching my legs, Gem asks if I have much trouble with my
feet. Does she mean the purple toenail polish that is in serious need of a
touch-up, or does she mean my feet themselves? I don’t know, but while
trying to formulate an answer all I can think is, “my feet? Why ask about my
feet? My knees are, as usual, killing me, and she wants to know about my
feet?” Finally I get out a word or two meant to indicate that my feet are
okay, their biggest problem being that they’re located so close to my knees,
which hurt much of the time.
	By the time she finishes I am little more than a muddled mass of
oily body parts, but it’s a good feeling, strange as that may sound. My
muscles are a bit more relaxed, my disposition a bit calmer, and if only I
could stay in the safe little room for a nap life would be perfect, but they
make me leave, handing me a bottle of water on my way out. Something about
appointments after me, and I can’t hang out there all day. Doesn’t seem
entirely fair, does it?