Massage therapy

Massages are a decadent sybaritic bourgeois luxury, and I don't get enough of them. But after the emotional turmoil of the winter, my upper back was starting to feel like a clotted mass of gnarly knots, so yesterday I plonked down some cash for someone to help me unwind. We're talking pure, unmediated bliss here. That massage felt really, really, really-really good. Thus it was something of a surprise at the end of it, as I wallowed in a deep endorphic fugue, that the masseuse said, "Thank you." Uh, isn't that my line? But as I wrote out a check back in the vertical world, she praised my breathing technique -- and good breathing really can make a big difference in a massage. It's an act of collaboration. "I could feel that your muscles were ready to let go as soon as I touched you," she said. Indeed, I had started to anticipate and imagine letting go of the tension as soon as I made the appointment a couple of days earlier.

It is a gift that has kept on giving over the past twelve-plus hours, too. I need to do this a few more times over the next couple of months to really get the full benefit, but falling asleep last night and waking up this morning were all part of a continuous unwinding. I feel revived. Good way to ring in the spring!