The scrub and massage always goes like this:
You lie on your back, then your side, then your other side, then your stomach. The attendant rubs a thick, fibrous rag against your skin. The sensation is somewhere between pain and a tickle. As you flip and adjust according to your body scrubber’s instruction, you can peek out from under your washcloth and see the dead skin lying in neat gray rolls next to you on the metal platform. Some people are bothered by this, but I don’t mind it. I see it as a sign of progress. The attendant rubs your elbows, your ankles, your armpits, your breasts, in between your buttocks, and behind your ears, places you might not think about, with equal attention and disinterest. Splash.
Next, you are covered in a chemical-smelling soap. Bubbles multiply on your raw skin and you feel reborn. Or you just feel like a fish. Splash.
The attendant hits your back twice, firmly, with her fists. You sit up, and she tells you to stick out your hands. “Go wash,” she says, squirting an exfoliating face wash into your hand. When you shower you make sure to wash your face well, as this is your only responsibility and you want to be helpful. You turn the faucet off and dry yourself with precision.
When you return from the shower, there will be towels draped over the metal platform. Now your attendant will beat oil into your skin using acupressure. She will hit the palms of your feet with her knuckles and pinch where your head meets your neck with all her strength. You will be kneaded and pulled and struck. I love that I can lie there and know that she’s doing what she does with everyone, that unlike other places where you might be massaged, the masseuse doesn’t ask you what hurts or where you need attention. No one is pointing out a special knot or specific issue. There is no special treatment here; only exactly this ritual with no variations.
Your hair will be washed while you lie with a hot, wet towel draped over your entire body. Your attendant will scratch the shampoo into your scalp so hard you worry your skin will split open. But it won’t, and soon you’ll feel blood flow into your temples. Your hair will be brushed with determination and without mercy. This might be my favorite part.
I’m sorry to return to the white light of the locker room and the women dressing themselves and prepping to resume their lives. I dislike snapping my bra back together against my back and slipping a T-shirt over my head. As I dress, my body quickly forgets what it was like to be naked and unobserved. The women in the locker room know to keep their eyes down and not look at each other’s bodies, not wanting to break the spell. I’ve never once been recognized at the spa, or at least no one has ever made it known that they recognize me. I slide my sneakers onto my bare feet, suffocating them, and I walk differently as soon as I have them on. I check my cell phone and answer emails as I head up, up, up to the ground level and the parking lot. I feed a validated parking ticket into a machine and start to drive, exiting the parking lot on Wilshire with the window rolled down but the radio turned off. A sense of loss overwhelms me as I leave. The silence feels right.
I pause before making a left to join the traffic, noticing a truck in my peripheral vision, blocking my turn. I sink in my seat and wait, but it doesn’t move. I finally look at the driver and notice that his window is also down. He waves.
“Hey,” he says. He has gaps in his top teeth. “Can I get your phone number?”
I shake my head, then pull out of the lot, using both hands to angle the steering wheel and swerve my car around the bed of his truck. I roll my eyes but I can’t help but check the rearview mirror to study my face, polished and free of makeup. I guess he thought I looked pretty, I think. I smirk a little despite myself. I notice that my lips look pale. As I drive home, I reach into my bag and put on some lipstick.
The Woozies
MY FATHER BUILT the house I grew up in. Tucked away in the sprawling suburbs of North County, San Diego, on a street that was unpaved for most of my childhood, the house sits on top of a small hill in clear view of the road. If by chance my father is in the driveway getting the newspaper or returning from a walk, people driving past will roll down their windows and yell out, “Your house is amazing! It looks like something out of a fairytale.”
The house is small, no more than eight hundred square feet, painted dark green and covered in ivy, with the windows and doors trimmed in white. It looks like it sprang naturally out of the yard where eucalyptus, pine, and our past Christmas trees grow, some to over twenty feet. Funky potted plants and cacti sit positioned like guards at the doorway. The house is a magical organism, a place both to absorb and be absorbed by.