I work out a lot and by “work out” I mean Zumba, yoga and Pilates.  I don’t pump a whole lot of iron because it bores me witless.  I do pump my own body weight several times a week (e.g., yoga pushups) and I hope that keeps me from disintegrating anytime soon.  I’m probably pretty fit, but I frequently feel like I’ve been run over by a train.  Because of this, I go for a massage every couple of months, or so.  And I soak in hot tubs, with or without jacuzzi jets.

I’ve had my share of very interesting massage experiences.  The very first one I ever got was around 35 years ago.  I was in Santa Fe, New Mexico with my first husband.  We were walking through a hotel corridor and noticed a shop that was advertising massages for $25.  I decided to try it. 

The massage therapist was a Sikh who lived in an ashram in Espanola.  His name was Gurushawan and he was very tall and thin.  To tell you the truth, he looked a little like bin Laden – but, at the time, I just saw him as a lanky guy with a dark beard and a white turban.

I don’t think a massage table was involved.  I seem to recall lying on the blanketed floor and talking a lot.  Gurushawan worked on me for two-and-a-half hours and my neck felt great for five years after that. It was that therapeutic. Of course, my ex was wondering what the hell was going on in there for so long, but he was soon to find out.  He was Gurushawan’s next customer – but he only got an hour. 

On my 46th birthday, I got massaged by a nice 22-year-old man at a day spa in Atlanta.  At one point, while he was rubbing my forearm, a flame shot out and knocked him across the room.  I damn near fell off the massage table. 

“What the hell was that?” he squealed, which sounded kind of funny with the New Age music playing in the background.  “I think I have a lot of electricity in my body,” I said, as calmly as possible.  I mean, how calm can you be when flames are coming out of your body?  Electricity?  I’d be good to have around in a blackout, in case someone runs out of matches. 

Now, I’m living in Santa Few with my current husband, Grant.  Santa Fe is crawling with massage therapists.  They work out of spas, hotels, casitas – some even carry a table in their car and work on you in the privacy of your own home.  Some of them are very good.  Some are very chatty.  Some prefer to work in silence, although the New Age music hasn’t gone out of style yet.

On a recent anniversary, Grant and I went to a Japanese spa in Santa Fe for deluxe (i.e., insanely expensive) massages and a soak in the communal tub.    

We had tried couples massages before and opted against it this time because – let’s face it – with a massage, you really want it to be all about you.  So, our anniversary massages took place in separate quarters – a girl for him, a boy for me.  All I wanted to do was lose the pain in my neck (where was Gurushawan when I needed him?  I suspect he moved back to Rochester, New York and became an accountant, or something, but I digress…).

Grant told me his masseuse was a skilled reflexologist and worked in silence.  My masseur, on the other hand, was a raving maniac in a beret who squashed my breasts into the table while he worked out his hostilities.  Over the hour-and-a half I spent on the table, I heard the entire story of his sad life.  He had a wife once and she left him and he cried a river.  Then, the truth came out.  He’s was as gay as a party hat.  Unfortunately, his male partner also left him.  Recently.  Maybe that morning.  I may have grunted sympathetically – or maybe I felt one of my ribs break.  At any rate (I think it was $220), his name was Gilbert – but he pronounced it Gil-Bear.  I’ll bet he wasn’t even French.  I felt like charging him $220 and suggesting he get a prescription for Prozac.  But I didn’t.

After getting manhandled by Gil-Bear for a full 90 minutes (and not a second more), I really needed some R&R, so I headed to the communal tub, which was right outside the women’s bathhouse.  At the time, I was not accustomed to public nudity – except for the nude beach we ended up on during our honeymoon many years before.  I guess it wasn’t really all that shocking in either context. Grant was waiting for me in his usual post-massage state of stupefaction.  He hadn’t taken his robe off yet, which was probably just as well.  In his current condition, he may have stumbled and drowned in the cold plunge.

There were three naked guys sunning themselves around the tub.  They looked like self-conscious turtles.  I made a beeline for the sauna, where three other naked guys were baking themselves like potatoes.  I suspected they were all busy checking each other out, so I took off my robe and sprawled on a ledge.  Nobody looked.  It was hotter than blazing hell in there.  I got out before my nipples burst into flame and went back to the edge of the hot tub, where Grant was blissfully  snoozing in a low wooden chair with his parts falling out of his robe.   Little did he know.  And I didn’t tell him!  And it didn’t matter anyhow.

I noticed there was a Teutonic-looking couple in the hot tub that could have come leaping out of Leipzig.  He was a big, muscular guy with a crew cut.  My ex had a theory about big, muscular men.  He thought they all had wienies the size of French fries.  He, of course, was a very skinny guy. By the time I looked to test his theory, Adolph’s wiener schnitzel was underwater and his wife’s sizable thigh was on top of it.  She looked like one of the seven maids-a-milking. I left before they start singing arias from Wagner.

No self-respecting Japanese spa would be without a koi pond and this one was no exception.  Grant was still napping so I slipped off to look at the koi and sip lemon water.  I bent over the pond and the koi come swimming up to me with their mouths open.  There was a big sign in front of the pond that said, “Do Not Feed The Koi” and all I had was lemon water so I pet them instead.  They looked disappointed.  It was time to go.  The massages and the hot tub and the sauna and the lemon water and the disappointed koi added up to three million dollars. 

Nowadays, I divide my time, unequally, between Santa Fe and Atlanta.  In Atlanta, where I spend the smaller percentage of my time, I occasionally treat myself to a massage at a day spa where they specialize in trying to sell you health and beauty products while they work on you for exactly 60 minutes.  Conversely, I have two massage therapists I go to in Santa Fe.  One works out of her house and one works out of his casita.  They both massage me for at least two hours apiece (no, not at the same time).  She is a comedian when she’s not massaging people – and sometimes while she’s massaging people.  He’s a building contractor when he’s not massaging people and he’s capable of hauling me around like a big stack of cordwood.  Both are excellent.

I would tell you the names of my massage therapists in Santa Fe, but they’re MINE!  ALL MINE!  However, If you should happen to run into Gurushawan out there and he’s not an accountant, get down on the floor immediately and request a massage.  Do it even if he is an accountant!  He’s probably still the best there is.