I had a massage, the first one I've received in several years, at a gym in Alameda that I recently joined. My masseuse was Mexican though she'd lived here for thirty years. She was great; warm and talkative, but not intrusive. She's fifty-two years old, but she told me that she feels young inside, "like a little child," she said enthusiastically -- though as she worked on me, she began to catalog her various aches and pains. I didn't mind. At fifty-two, you're entitled to a few aches and pains, especially if you give twenty massages a week. I liked her a lot.
Laying there on the table in the dark, with soft New Age music playing in the background to offset the sound of balls thumping loudly against the walls in the racquetball courts, I thought about how lucky I was to live in California. I know there's massage everywhere now, just like there's sushi everywhere, even in the landlocked states (which bothers me), but it all started here.
I spent much of my thirties and forties getting all manner of massages from friends who were practicing their trade: Swedish, Shiatsu, Reichian, Deep Tissue, Esalen: you name it, I got it. Naturally, I remember that time with deep affection -- those difficult but pleasurable decades that I slid through in a California dream.
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