Massage masochism
A couple weeks ago, I was already feeling like the luckiest girl in the world when my thoughtful, generous, and fun-loving friends threw me a surprise bachelorette-type party, and then I found an $100 bill on the sidewalk. Well Hannah found it, but because she’s thoughtful, generous, and fun-loving, she gave it to me.
Today, I decided to unearth the bill from my underwear drawer and take it to my new favorite Chinatown massage place after some work obligations fell through and I was left with a free afternoon. I called 15 minutes before I showed up. The masseuse who matched with me by fate, a sizable older gentleman dressed in a polo shirt and belted pants, led me to a curtained booth of a room, asked me how I was, then began to tenderize me. His technique was one of elbows and body weight. Since I’d been to this place before, I knew they went hard and wasted no time. He pressed and dragged his elbows into the spaces between my ribs and down my spine. Before each compression, I took a breath in through my nose, and as he seemed to test the limits of my musculoskeletal structure, I released a demure breath out of my mouth.
Fragments that came to mind as this occurred for many minutes included the questions, Why am I paying for this? and Could this be as painful as childbirth? and images of me slowly being run over by a car, Thomas screaming were he to be in my position, and the whiteboard at my gym that says “The pain of today is the strength of tomorrow.” I thought about details from this interview with an anthropologist about prehistoric dentistry that captured my imagination (e.g., Neanderthals withstood anesthesia-free root canals that required “35 to 50 minutes of continuous, high-pressure drilling”). I thought about the worst pain in the world, getting a bikini wax, and wondered why anyone put themselves through that torture. At least this wasn’t that bad.
But then I felt the absolute ecstasy of fascial release after he finished one side of my back and suddenly it wasn’t just worth it, it was sooooo good.
My mind went to a conversation I had with a midwife at a birthday dinner last night. She told me about the benefits that come from a baby being compressed through the birth canal. Liquid from their lungs is squeezed into their “interstitial space,” a space in our bodies outside of our organs for non-blood liquids that I did not know existed. I thought about what might be happening in my interstitial space. I’d asked the midwife if it’s true that DMT is released in our brains when we’re born, not remembering if I heard this through word-of-mouth or an Instagram Reel. She didn’t know but said she’d look into it and get back to me. I’d like to believe it’s true.
The massage lasted an hour. It was a death and rebirth experience that verged on psychedelic. With tip I paid $75. I felt like a freshly born foal as I walked home, passing by people on the busy sidewalk.