Not Simply a Massage

For my birthday earlier this month, one of my friends offered to take me to breakfast and out for a foot massage. We finally went this morning. Our experience was so...well...an experience, that we jointly agreed it needed to be put in this blog.

Let me set the stage here. I am not new to massage; and in fact, consider massage my only consistent luxury for which I am willing to pay (besides chocolate). Knowing how much I love them, my friend, Jen, offered to take me to a new place in our town.

To fully understand this "massage experience", it must be said that I am a plus sized woman, as is my friend. She weighs a lot less than I do;  however, as wide as I am, she is tall. We are both White. Both factors make us oddities in our area of town, to be sure, since the majority of the population is Asian and Indian here.  The massage place we were going to is owned and operated by lovely Asian people. We knew this, and didn't think much of it at the time.

Okay, so...enter two crazy white woman into a store front where about a half dozen people are milling about, all Asian, all staring at us. No one says anything; they only nod at us. Someone finally says, "massage?" and we smile and say, "Yes, please, foot massages."  We gesture to ourselves, indicating two of us. A bit of discussion in a language neither of us understands ensues, and they agree on putting us into two "chairs" next to each other.

Ahhhh....the chairs. I mentioned I was wide, but Praise God! these chairs were sooooo wide that there was ample room for allllll of me. Enough to make you laugh, yes, but just wait: they were purple/maroon color, velour, and they tipped completely flat back so later we were laying down. Stools were pulled up for our legs and feet, and then we waited. This whole time, all the people there, whatever their language, were having seemingly fervent debate about who knows what, with a lot of gesturing to the ladies (us). One person put a blanket on us. One person put our feet in warm water buckets. Another person pushed our chairs flat, so we were laying down. Yet another made sure the pillows were in exactly the right spot.

Okay. So are you getting the overwhelming attention here? We couldn't understand a single word anyone said, but it was painfully obvious that we were the center of attention here. As some point, I was positive they were discussing my tattoos and calling other friends/relatives/visitors over to check them out...but I am getting ahead of myself.

There were women and men there, but two men appeared to be the ones who were going to rub our feet. But wait a minute! As we lay there, the guys sat on stools at our heads, and began to rub their fingers through our hair. I say "we" and "our" because Jen was next to me and I could tell the same thing was happening to HER as was happening to ME. Fingers in hair. Then hands on our faces. Woah! unexpected...but... interesting. Face massage! Scalp massage! Bye bye hairdo. So long makeup. No talking to the ladies, only an ongoing dialogue about ????? by everyone else.

Back to the massage: face, head, scalp, neck, arms, shoulders, hands, fingers (wow...what a wild foot massage, huh?) okay...thoughts in my head went something like this: "hmmm....interesting...feels good, but, not really what we meant. How long is this taking? what is he doing now? what will he do next?"

oh. I forgot to mention that this was all being done in one big room where everyone was, everyone could see everything, and all the people talking about whatever it was were doing so loudly and constantly. I almost laughed several times.

By this time I am over the fact that this man I have never met before, whom I can't speak with, has had his hands in my hair, all over my face, and is now rubbing my leg. Sounds hilarious, right? He finally got to my leg and my foot. Twenty five minutes have passed, and I realize that he still has another leg and foot to get to; and there is NO way that I am going to be able to pick up my daughter from preschool.

I make an emergency call to a mom whose child goes to school with my daughter. Using as few words as possible, I ask her to do me a favor and drive Mo home. I tell her I will tell her why later. Cool, huh? I can quit worrying about one kid. BUT...the other child is at home with a sitter who thinks we'll return around the time school ends.  Not looking good at this point. I'll have to have faith that she'll be okay with it.

Ah, all right. He's on to the other leg and the last part of the "foot massage". Nope. I am finally focused on enjoying his foot rub when he finishes. And says words that struck fear into my heart (and into Jen's, I confirmed later): "turn over". My brain flashes bright light and I go momentarily dumbstruck. What? Turn over? ME? turn over HERE in this place? with my gigantic backside sticking up in the air and my face down where people can literally talk behind my back? Really?

Ugh.  So I do it.

I turn over and proceed to get a fabulous full body massage while fully dressed, lying on my stomach, on this amazingly comfy chair, from a man I never met, whom I don't understand, sort of...and I never told where it hurts, but regardless... My brain stops exploding and my inner giggler is silenced as I am impressed over and over how he gets the EXACT spot and just keeps going and going and going and going.

This gentleman constantly pulled my shirt down over my butt. He constantly kept a hand on me (which anyone who's had massage knows you are supposed to do). Plain and simple, he was fabulous. At some point he stopped talking to the other people and focused on ME.

At the end of everything, which by the way took an hour and twenty minutes, he gave us cups of water and a big smile. Then he told Jen, "sleep, it's okay." He did TOO speak English! Then he disappeared. After we sat up and got ready to leave, all the other people, mostly ladies now, started talking to us. In English. Hmmm....and very politely asked us to come again and tell our friends about the place and how the chairs were just delivered that morning and they were soooo happy we liked them. Wow.  And it DID all run together just like I just typed it.

Why take so long to describe what happened today?

Because how many times do we expect one thing and then get another? How many times do we set something up in our minds, our hearts, our lives, and then God surprises us with something WAY better than we would ever have imagined?  If we were not adventurous enough to trust that we'd be fine there with strangers, with a language we didn't know, we wouldn't have been blessed by two of the most amazing "foot massages" we'd ever had!

Jen and I had a wonderful time together. I was able to make her laugh with my rendition of what was being said in another language ("that tattoo?"....) and not REALLY worrying about what others thought of us. I laughed at her upon hearing her say "ow" and "oh" and "ow" again as she was getting HER massage. It was fabulous and so much fun.

We had no control over that hour and a half after we sat down in those chairs.

We were unexpectedly schooled without words:
-In letting go and trusting.
-In counting our blessings instead of worrying.
-In being thankful for good friends.
-In making the connection between God having His hand in our lives, and on our hair, and all over everywhere else and feeling it, because He is no stranger to those who follow Him.

So was today simply a bizarre massage experience? Or a fabulous way to connect to each other and the world around us, with the hand of God over it all?

We returned home and the kids were fine. The mom took one child home while the lovely sitter was fine with the other (and then them both). We were 45 minutes later than expected, but we arrived stress free and feeling wonderful! 

All because of a "foot massage" and omelets. Fabulous.