“Bweathe,” she implored. “You strong girl. I’m hundred an’ sixty poun’. Bweathe, bweeeeaaathe,” she continued, simultaneously perched atop my backside, hanging from iron bars above her, and riding the contours of my anatomical topography with her bulldozer feet. I tried, but the first utterance was more like a desperate, primal laugh-scream-grunt, than flowing breath. I was worried; With this inauspicious beginning that felt like torture, I didn’t know if I could make it through the whole hour of shiatsu massage I’d signed up for.
I was flat on a table, naked between two crisp white sheets in a barely-lit room at Salon de Tokyo with my husband on a table next to me enduring the manipulations of his own kamikaze masseuse. I’d been there before, years ago, and had wanted to share the experience with Ralph who had never received a professional massage, so finally got around to making appointments in late Spring.
What I’d remembered from my past visit were the kind smiles of all the sweet employees who tended to me in the sauna, shower and dressing room and the clean and soothing atmosphere of the authentic Japanese establishment, perfectly located in midtown right next to Carnegie Hall on 57th Street. And I remembered feeling good after my massage.
Apparently though, submitting to shiatsu massage is something akin to giving birth to a baby because my recollection of the massage was wildly distorted through the warped lens of time. This was serious business and if I was going to have any chance at making it through the hour, I needed to concentrate on “bweathing.”
Luckily, I had years of yoga experience to fall back on, and began to relax and breathe deeply in rhythm with the wave-like (read tsunami grade) movements of my masseuse, as if I was in a difficult pose trying to find my comfort zone. As I surrendered to my midwife, whom I later learned was named “Janey,” my body unzipped and unwound, eventually to the point of floppy mush. Bones popped, muscles unclenched, and our Japanese masseuses periodically broke into girlish giggles after sharing a few foreign words.
Ralph mysteriously emitted not a peep during the entire appointment, until while we’d been lying silently in the dark for five minutes or so after Janey and her colleague had left, he said, “I can’t move. What am I supposed to do?” We exploded with laughter and ever so slowly and carefully found our ways to sitting, before moving onto sauna and showers.
When we emerged on the sunny and bustling New York City street, we both stood silent and dazed not sure how to make the transition from the womb we’d just inhabited for the past two hours. As Ralph figured it, we were completely slowed down and the world was buzzing around us.
We did eventually make it to dinner and for a nice walk through nearby Central Park, but the massages’ effects lasted for days and we couldn’t stop talking about them. We were hooked. Massages really are a luxury and in her lap we don’t currently sit, but we decided that this was one expense we’d gladly add to our modest budgets every week or so.
