To feel underneath

All this week I've been feeling the need to write. Write about my clients. It's delicate, 'cause of privacy laws. Also I get bouts of laziness. But I want to write about my job as a massage therapist.

I'm a good therapist. My hands aren't the strongest, my technique is sometimes hap-hazard, and my drapings aren't crisp. Yet I have clients coming back to me repeatedly, tipping well, and falling asleep on my table.

When a client falls asleep on a table, it is a huge compliment. They've become relaxed enough to sleep while in a state of undress, being touched all over by a stranger.

I'm lucky. Today I was massaging a lady I'll call Rachel. Rachel's skin is soft and the color of buttery cocoa. Her whole body is a consistent tone and warmth and radiates health. She feels amazing, but her surface isn't what I dwell on. It's what's underneath. Earlier this week she sprained her foot and has had subsequent trouble walking and sitting and is sore all over. I have her for 90 minutes and it's not long enough. The first 30 minutes are spent on her feet alone, and the injured one has tight clouds of tendon and muscle right beneath the skin.

Then there was another client, I'll call him Paul. He was middle-aged and balding, but had played basketball yesterday and felt general soreness. I could barely touch him; any pressure caused him to wince and tense up more.

And there was Claire, 11 years old, with her mom. They got massages in the couple's room. I've never worked on one so young and was terrified. Children feel different. Also, I don't want to break them. Some of my co-workers refuse to work on minors, but I will, even when I'm nervous. Luckily Claire was a fun child and although it was her first massage, did everything right--meaning that she told me when she wanted more pressure and when she had enough and when she needed to get up and use the restroom. She did seem bored for the last 15 minutes; young people get restless when asked to be still for so long.

I feel that I get to know people so intimately. There is great strength in physical connections, and--especially with my regular clients---I learn their bodies more so than someone focusing on the surface. I see, I observe, I know if they smoke and the stories behind their tattoos and scars and if that mole was checked recently by a doctor; I hear about vacations and marital problems and injuries and work and stress. And I know how their body holds all that in, and I have seen and felt it leave.

Once my clients are clothed and I've handed them a cup of water and walk them to the front of the clinic, I can't touch them. There's something weird about touching someone clothed when you've only touched their bare skin before. Perhaps that's how people with lovers feel, that once you're out in the world you can't know each other. The magic will break if you overlap your circles.

I need to write more, obviously. My mind is jumbled and messy, with simply too much in it to process basic things.

Yet it was delicious

My father drove me out to Falls City, Oregon to a place called The Bread Board. It's a small-town bakery that cooks all of its goodies in a huge fire-brick-oven-thing.

He and I don't do things together a whole lot; it was good for us to make conversation. Or attempt to. We have very different views on about everything, and yet we don't want to drive the other person away...this results in me saying "mmmm yeah?" a lot and him saying "huh, well..." as he goes into a different topic.

I ate this gallette-thing with mushrooms, walnuts, pesto, and some type of cheese. Now, I don't often get sick from eating something with cheese in it, but I almost always notice a mood-swing. One reason I try to stay vegan is that dairy depresses me. Really. I eat it, I get depressed. Sigh. Not fun.

I'm home now, listening to Sufjan Stevens, and wanting to be alone in a place with stars and a hot tub and snow and, I don't know, air. I'm sad that my family didn't get together with anyone for Thanksgiving. I miss my grandparents and my cousins and my sibling and the Thanksgivings we had when we were all younger, going up to some hot springs in Canada where we'd roll in the snow then get into the steamy water as quickly as we could.

My dad and I talked about what cousin would get married first. Ryan and I are the oldest, but all of us cousins are single and only one on my dad's side is still in high school--and he's graduating this year. Our poor parents. We probably unsettle and depress them at least a little.

Upset insides

My grandparents were visiting this weekend and took my parents and I out to breakfast this morning.

They're all vegetarian, and we went to a cafe that sounded promising. It was. Plenty of veggie options, and everyone was happy--from my potato-loving Papa to my fine-foods-favoring father.

A week ago I had ice cream and felt very sick for a couple hours.

But I'm never one to order oatmeal at a restaurant. $6.50 for oats? Right. Yeah. I'll take the blue-corn pancakes with hazelnuts. And they were delicious, especially with my side of sourdough toast (dry, no butter).

My stomach reminded me that it can find dairy, even in delicious pancakes. And it warned me that I shouldn't cheat again.

My soul cries, cries loudly

I think that people may be surprised when they learn what types of adventure my inner fibres call for, what makes those cords vibrate like struck guitar strings. Their harmonics are different than the adventures I've had:

--Weimar (very much an adventure, as was col-portering before that)
--Living with my sibling
--Boston this past summer (Stanislavsky Summer School)

Although out of my comfort zone, they're rather...tame.

I want adventure. I want experience. I want knowledge. I want the sun on my face and danger near the door. I want to stop bleeding wounds and hearts and hear stories that touch me deep and fiercely. I want to help. I want to grow. I don't want to be complacent. I want to backpack across mountains, hear the rumble of avalanches and hunger and lions and bears. I want to hitch-hike across the country without a concealed weapon. I want to be tough. I want to throw myself into a project I believe in whole-heartedly and have it change everything. I want to teach and heal and be an expatriate. I want to see the stars and feel the wind and I want to help.

I've emailed some places for more information (like WWU student missions and the Peace Corps), but if you know anything that even sparks resonance with what I want, please let me know.

Academic Regret

A week or so after I graduated with my B.A. in English, I mentioned to my mom that I didn't feel satisfied with my college experience. I didn't, and don't, feel like I should be congratulated on graduating; my GPA and my areas of study have left me feeling unacademic, uneducated, unprepared, and unsatisfied. Look at the above sentences: the tenses are all screwy.

This isn't to say that I didn't learn anything; I learned a hell of a lot. My critical thinking capabilities expanded immensely and it seems I left the educational nest right when I learned how tall the tree was--not when I learned I wasn't actually a bird. Weeeee...

With many things, I try to look back and say, "No, I wouldn't do it differently; I learned and grew and became the person I am through that experience." Well currently I feel that's bullshit. I don't like the academic person I am now, and I blame that on how I behaved in college. "Try grad school!" they say. Yes, I plan to, as soon as I figure out what I want to spend 3 years and thousands of dollars on, and if I can actually get into those programs.

I know there are very few do-overs in life, so I'll phrase my answer thus: if I were to go back for another bachelor's degree, I would major in humanities and minor in philosophy and art.

I want to be able to analyze my world and think for myself. I want to be intelligent, ie, how I perceive intelligence (basically, great reasoning & logic skills). Of course, actually putting down humanities, philosophy and art make me think of all the other things I would like to study; I could be a perpetual student and perhaps never have my academic hunger sated.