A few months ago Brian and I found ourselves in Mexico for our 25th anniversary vacation. Most of what we do on vaca is purposeful nothingness which leads to a spontaneous burst of amazing insights and creativity…we are artist’s after all. I am always kinda shocked actually at how much gets done while doing nothing…the brain plays catch up from the craziness of a busy life.
My doctors that care for me all agree if not on always my course of treatments that I should spend time doing nothing and over the years this wasn’t an easy task…enter middle age and the body if not the mind requires a little break from time to time. So I have succumbed to being agreeable to do nothing every now and again.
Sometimes during these trips we meet people that change our lives, while other times we meet people who make a lasting memory. Such was the case a few years back when I wrote about Brian taking me to the spa in San Antonio and how they gave him grapes while leaving me to fend for myself ON MY BIRTHDAY!!!! LOL Or that time in Paris when B and I were in a little restaurant in the Champs and our waiter who truthfully looked just like BOZO the clown kept bringing us stuff to eat and little ice cubes and every time I would say “thank you” and he would bellow out in a transervalianesque “Your Welcome.” Characters that stay with you…you get what I mean.
This last trip we spent time at the spa and I met Rogelio Garcia. Now upon our first encounter Rogelio was responsible for doing a body scrub. I figured I would try it since so many clients had raved about the benefits and how soft their skin was after. I stepped into a little room with a shower and Rogelio told me to put on the paper panties and bra. When I was on the table he came in and turned on the shower and steam started to fill up that tiny space. He placed a towel over my eyes and then leaned in and tapped me on my forehead and said in a very excited voice “Alisa, (pronounced ALIZA) this is your moments!” At that instant I felt like I might have made a mistake with my began spa choice and a little like Cindy loo whoo when the Grinch leans forward after she asks him why he’s taking all the presents and he pats her on the head! The scrub was fine and I’d recommend it to you should you be in that area ever but what was weird was by the time he was done he then put me in the shower and he was washing all this crap off me and I could not see him with all that steam. Now I don’t know how this would make you feel but being in a strange small shower filled with steam, pretty much naked and covered in goo and a strange man washing you where you can not see his next move… ahhh folks, not relaxing not even in the slightest!
Flash forward three days and I find myself back at the spa because really there’s nothing else to “do.” This time I signed up for a deep tissue massage which truthfully can and is often done poorly. Massage therapists must be trained to do deep tissue and many just try to wing it with pressing harder on a Swedish (which I think is like going and getting petted…ugh) massage. As I walked into the spa I heard a very high pitched squeal come from around the fish tank filled with tiny fishes that like to eat dead skin off your feet and for the record no, I did not sign up for that. “Aliza! Aliza! It is you!” I looked at Rogelio and said “yes, yes actually it is me.” Like what else could I say? I knew by his enthusiasm that He was signed up for massaging me and I was praying he knew what he was doing. We went to the little room where the water was flowing which is the massage space ( this was our second visit to the same place) and I got on the table. I told Rogelio “Now listen, you do know what I signed up for right?” And I stated that with the flow and form of as if I were actually saying “ Cause this is expensive and I hate nothing more than having my expectations crushed.” He said “Oh YES! Aliza I love the deep tissue one!” So we proceeded….He at some point decided that I needed to be pulled straight up off the table while face down and while doing this (which by the way is not protocol for deep tissue massage at all) He stated “ NOW …. Aliza! I must stretch you!” Truthfully I did not even see it coming, so I found myself completely naked pulled the opposite direction into a “C” without warning. Despite that this was not bad… not bad at all. And I actually remember saying to myself after it was over why not? This guy and I had already had a shower together this week so what was the big deal anyway? After he got finished he leaned into me and said “Aliza! I hope you enjoyed your moments!” He certainly made sure that I would never forget him.
This next year is almost here and it is easy breezy to go work through another one. I want you though to take a break even if it’s for an hour and from me to you; learn the lesson that Rogelio so memorably taught me this summer to “Enjoy your moments!”
Cheers to 2016 and a year filled with such times!
