Yesterday morning I bravely ventured forth to have a massage, hugely disturbed by the thought of strangers touching my neck.
I had forgotten to worry about the fact that I live in a small town, so the odds that it would be a stranger hovered somewhere around zero. In fact, the first thing the therapist said was You’re Karen’s friend, right?
Uh, yeah.
Then we sat down for the obligatory intake questions, including Do you have any health problems?
I opened my eyes very wide and said No.
Why did I do that?
Who knows. Clearly pathological behavior, but hey! I’m allowed the occasional twitch!
Especially since she would figure it out shortly, as she then proceeded to do deep tissue massage of my torso, home to three hundred plus biopsy scars, and neck, sliced halfway round to hack out massive malignant tumors.
This very nice and professional woman hesitated when she caught her first glimpse of the scars, and nearly stopped when her fingers encountered the large supposedly “benign” thing growing in the right side of my neck.
She did not at any point ask me what the heck she was looking at.
British people are so polite! Or…. something.
Other than the strange suspension of narrative integrity, the experience was good. My neck feels much better now.
Though I miss Ana Helena’s wit and brutality, blasting Scopotones or punk music or the Velvet Underground and saying feel the pain or you will never get better as she pounded away, somehow in the madness restoring the function of my right arm, and my sense of smell, lost more than a decade earlier.
Or to state it a different way: I want to go home.