Putty In Her Hands

More than ten years ago, I had money. I mean, so much money I truly didn't know what to do with it. Stupid me, I should have been shoving it into stocks and bonds, but I didn't know about these things and my then-partner in whooping it up (Xman) saw no need to save for the rainy years that followed.

So one thing I did with my money was go for massages. I tried a couple of places and found Denise, who was wonderfully New Age-y and had magical thumbs. When Denise had to step aside - those wonderful thumbs developed arthritis - she referred me to her sister.

The little suburban office building that houses Nan's massage therapy place is anonymous and boring. But when you step into Nan's office, you're in a different world. There's New Age / comfort / soothing music playing softly in the background. The air is perfumed with something luscious. Nan's favorite color is purple, and it's everywhere.

I've been going to her for ten years now. During The Lost Years, I saw her whenever I had a windfall - someone gave me a gift certificate, I got back a ridiculously large tax refund - or on or near my birthday.

There are also times when I get these huge, hard knots in my shoulders. Before I discovered massage, I would try to hammer them out myself and because I could never find exactly the right place, believed it was all in my head.

I've been seeing Nan so long now that it's like a regular girl talk / therapy session, anyway. She changes the flannel sheets on the massage table and we start talking. Nan is large, very feminine with long red hair, and always wears a flowy dress and no shoes.

She'll leave me in the room to take my clothes off and get under the covers. I lay there on the padded table, feeling the warmth from the heated pad under the sheet. In the dim candlelight, with that soothing music playing, I immediately begin to feel my muscles loosen.

I've wandered off into a kind of waking dream several times while Nan massaged me, listening to the music.

She comes in and by now I'm familiar with the routine. Head first, forehead, cheeks, and even my ears. My shoulders. Left arm, left leg, right leg, right arm, then my tummy. She holds the sheet up so I can turn over onto my stomach.

It's bliss by now and we've stopped talking because I'm lapsing into that half-sleeping state, only aware of her hands. Once I thought of them as potter's tools - kneading and carving the clay, making it supple and responsive.

It takes her all of a split second to find the walnut-sized knots in both shoulder blades and she goes to work on these. I'm sore today, but I can move my head, something I couldn't do before Nan got hold of me.

When she's done, she puts her hand on the back of my head and says, "Rest a few minutes. Take your time getting up."

I do. I slide back into my clothes. I am now redolent of lavender. The one winter I could afford to go every other week, I didn't have a problem with dry skin, something that usually plagues me in the colder months.

Dressed, back at her desk, I willingly empty my wallet on her desk.

"I'll see you again soon," I say. "Whenever fortune smiles my way again."