Spa Sessions

By Christine Simokaitis

Friday, 10:15 AM: Paul^[1]

“I’ve got this knot,” he said, as he held the left side of his neck. “It’s not too bad unless I do this.” He stretched his ear toward his shoulder, wincing, said he didn’t think he’d need the full hour, that I could just rub his neck and that would probably be fine. His wife made him come because she was tired of him walking around with that face. I told him I might want to do some work on his back first, just to see how things felt there. He nodded gingerly and said, “Whatever you think, Doc.”

When I came back into the room after letting him get undressed and onto the table, he was waiting under the sheet, prone, propped up on his elbows. “Yeah,” he said. “You know you’re getting old when you throw out your back while changing a lightbulb.” When he had positioned himself flat on the table with his head in the face cradle, he let out a loud sigh.

Once I began, he could not believe how tight his back was. “Man,” he said. “I guess it’s been a while since I got a massage.” I discovered a large trigger point near the bottom of his left scapula, another one on the right side, low back. I suggested that these tight areas in his back may have been the reason he got the knot in his neck, that he was holding his posture in a particular way to compensate for the pain and tightness, so when he exerted pressure while changing the lightbulb, his neck went out. “That makes sense,” he said. I felt him relaxing, beginning to doze.

When I said it was time to turn over, he roused, and began to move. “Go slow,” I cautioned.

“Oh, yeah. God.” His voice was thick with exertion as he turned himself onto his back. I tented the sheet by pinning it against the table with my thighs and holding it up so that he wouldn’t get tangled in the linens as he rotated. “Ah, there. Wow.” He settled onto his back and I let the sheet drop over him again. “I guess it’s good you worked on my back. I think I was drifting off a little bit.”

I sat on the stool at the head of the table and felt the sharp tightness in his neck, worked gently there. I positioned his head so that his muscles moved further into their holding pattern, exaggerating it, and then let go a bit. I repeat this sequence a few times until I felt the muscles release.

When the session was over and he was dressed he thanked me and said, “I think my wife will be very happy.”

*****

I have been practicing massage for about twenty five years. Sometimes I wonder how many bodies I have had my hands on in all the various spas and holistic health centers where I have worked. After having my kids, I mostly maintained a private practice, and either rented a small space a few days a week, or worked out of my house. Now, massage is my “side job,” and my private practice has dwindled to the handful of regular clients I have had for many years. I recently started doing spa work again to supplement my income as a college English Instructor because I am divorced now and need to make more money. I did not think I would like it, being back at a spa, but, while it is much more physically exhausting than it used to be to do several massages in a day – my own body that much older – and I would rather not have to have a second job at all, there are elements of the work that I find pleasurable.

*****

Saturday, 9:00 AM: William

When I greeted him in the waiting area, his face bore an expression that I could not quite name. There was a certain formality to it that I felt myself resisting. When we arrived in the treatment room he said that he was hard of hearing, so if I needed to say anything during the massage, I should do so loudly. That explained what I had perceived as uptightness, and relaxed a little. I made a point of speaking clearly when I told him that he should start out face down on the table, and I would be back in a minute.

I am also hard of hearing. I have tinnitus as well as congenital hearing loss. Here, I converse very little with my clients, so being hard of hearing is not a detriment. If a client says anything while they are face down I will inevitably have to ask them to repeat themselves since their voices are directed toward the floor and muffled by the face cradle cushioning. But, generally, the “listening” I am required to do is done with my hands.

When I am in class I struggle to hear my students. Sometimes I have to ask them to repeat themselves three times and I still don’t understand what they’ve said, and one of the other students might translate for me.

In my private practice, my clients and I have known each other for so long it would seem strange to not chat for a few minutes before we begin the session. Sometimes we’ll talk a bit during the massage as well, before they settle in to relax. There are times when I have to restrain myself from talking too much because I like my clients and generally enjoy filling each other in on what has transpired in our lives since their last session, but I know the chatter would detract from their relaxation.

For the most part, I do not mind these many hours of silence at the spa, although every once in a while, I find myself feeling very chatty, even a little slap-happy, at the end of the day.

Friday 2:45 PM: Fran

I think it is funny that her last name is Knotts, since she is here for a massage. Get it? Knots? I wonder how common a name that is, and if she is related to Don Knotts, the actor I know best as Mr. Roper on Three’s Company and who I think also played a character on The Andy Griffith Show, but that was before my time. Thinking of him and his bulging eyes reminds me of Rodney Dangerfield, who always rubbed me the wrong way (ha ha get it, Ms. Knotts? rubbed? I hope you feel like I’m rubbing you the right way!) but I guess that was kind of the point of his “I don’t get no respect” routine. He was in Caddyshack which I recently watched with my kids because they had heard about the Baby-Ruth-in-the-swimming-pool scene. The movie is rated R, mostly for language, but my kids have seen a lot of R stuff, and I knew that an R rating from the 80’s would be like a PG rating today. It’s funny how some older films now seem long or slow. The kids thought the movie was weird and kind of boring, which it was, but we had to watch the whole thing to find out what happens with the gopher. That gopher is still a thing. The other day, a couple of weeks after watching the movie, my kids and I were at Walgreen’s and needed to pick out a birthday card for my father, and one of them spotted a card with that gopher on it. When he opened the card, it played “I’m Alright,” by Kenny Loggins, the theme song from Caddyshack. The song was stuck in my head for a week after watching the movie, and then again after opening that card, and here it is now. It’s funny how certain things just stick. Like that gopher. But anyway I have been thinking that maybe I should use “I’m alright” as an affirmation because I am alright, right now, and I want to continue to be alright, but I do not always feel so sure that I will be. Maybe we can all be alright, somehow, despite everything. When you do affirmations, you’re supposed to say them in the present tense, as if whatever it is you’re trying to manifest is actually happening now. That way, the message will soak into your psyche on a deeper level. I remember learning that back when I was in massage school, in Santa Fe, and everything was very woo-woo, and then I had tried to start my own practice and was struggling to make it all work and I ended up having to give up my apartment because I wasn’t making enough money, even though I was doing a lot of massages and I was saying all my affirmations. I felt like I had failed on the physical plane because I couldn’t pay my rent, and like I had failed on the spiritual plane because I couldn’t get my affirmations to work, even though I was saying them in the present tense. I thought of myself then as someone who did healing work, as someone for whom healing work was a life path, and I had to grieve, after that (although I didn’t know then that that’s what I was doing), having reckoned with the fact that healing work alone does not pay the bills.

But anyway, Ms. Knotts sure does have a lot of knots! (Ha ha!)

Saturday, 2:15 PM: Monica

She was in town visiting her boyfriend. She said she had a massage therapist she saw regularly at home on the East Coast who is amazing, but she was kind of desperate so she scheduled here. Before I began, she let me know: she liked the table warmer turned to medium; she wanted towels rolled up and placed under her shoulders when she was prone; she did not like her face touched; she preferred a pillow to the round ankle bolster; she wanted the music turned up a little bit more, and then down just a teeny bit; she would like me to bring her a glass of water, tepid, not cold; she needed deep pressure on her back and shoulders, but moderate pressure – not light – on her arms and legs.

She fell asleep almost as soon as I touched her.

Saturday, 4:00 PM: Open Session

In the break room, I take out the papers from one of my English 101 classes that I had brought with me to grade. “Dear Governor Rauner,” one paper starts.

I teach Composition and Creative Writing at a state university. I guess you could say that’s my “real job” (although some might argue that a position as an adjunct instructor is not technically a “job” since we are assigned classes on a semester-by-semester basis). The university is ranked as one of the most ethnically diverse in the nation (quite unlike our clientele here at the spa, which is 95% white), and many of the students are first generation college students. We also have a lot of undocumented students. A week ago, I asked my 101 classes what impact they thought the state budget crisis could have on the university. Many of the students had no idea that Illinois has not had a budget in place for almost two years; some said they knew, but didn’t think it had an impact on them. I opened the discussion to include any of the policies that had been enacted since the Inauguration. No one had much to say. I subsequently changed the syllabus so that instead of analyzing a magazine ad, which was going to be the assignment for Paper #3, I had them write a letter to an elected official. I told them that they could focus on any current federal or state political issue that they cared about: the immigration ban, climate change, health care, women’s health, national security, privacy, LGBTQ rights, sexual violence, voting rights, free speech, the lack of funding for MAP grants and the subsequent furlough days, etc. etc.

When a few of them said that they didn’t care enough about any of that to write a paper on it, I told them to pretend, and to write it anyway, and that if they could not pretend, they were to create an image in their minds, from their bodies, their senses, of what it might look or sound or feel like to care, in any way, about any of these issues. I told them they could write it as a persona piece, as fiction, if necessary.

Saturday, 5:15 PM: Barb

When I asked if there is anything she wanted me to focus on, she said her neck was really tight. She had TMJ, or Temporomandibular Joint Syndome, which causes pain in the jaw and a myriad of other ailments and is often caused by stress or tension.While we were talking in the treatment room, before starting her session, she said that at work she could feel herself hunching down into herself. She curled her shoulders forward and slouched, to illustrate the posture she felt herself inhabit during her work day.

As I began, I could feel how she shrank inside herself, how she got stuck in there, inside. Her back was cement, and she said she wanted deep tissue work. When I ran my thumbs down her rhomboid muscles, she said it felt sensitive for some reason, tender. Strong physical pressure would not work, even though it was what she had said she wanted, and I had no choice but to lighten up anyway. I had done three deep tissue sessions that day, and my hands would not be able to sustain deeper pressure. I backed off, and then I could feel her, her energy. I performed Swedish massage strokes with moderate pressure on the more superficial layers of her back until I felt something – a knot, a spot, heat. I circled around it with my fingers, honing in, and then I held my fingers in place until I felt the energy pulse, faster and stronger until it released and the tissue softened. Again and again over her shoulders and on either side of her spine, I did light pressure point work.

When I had her turn over onto her back, I palpated the steel rods that were her neck muscles and did not know how she got through the day with her neck so tight, how she did not have numbness, tingling, or pain down her arms and into her fingers, how she did not have chronic headaches, lightheadededness. How any blood got to her brain.

She needed so much more than I could give her. I cupped the nape of her neck in one palm, placed my other palm on her forehead, waited for an energy shift. I remembered to breathe.

Afterwards she said she felt great. She looked different, like she had had a good night’s sleep. She hugged me. “Really,” she said. “Thank you. So much.”

*****

It’s hard to know, sometimes, whether or not I’m teaching my students anything, or if I am just a body there, in the classroom, filling the space, saying words, hunched inside myself.

*****

Saturday, 7:45 PM: Natalie

I was surprised by her toes, which were long and knobby. They did not seem to belong on her body, which was wide and soft.

*****

When I first started doing massage professionally, I worked at a holistic health center where I often did seven massages in a day, some 60, some 90 minutes. Afterwards, I would come home and submerge by throbbing hands in a bucket of ice water. The pain was what I might experience after an intense workout, like my muscles had been used well and hard and were getting strong. When I was in grad school, getting an MFA in creative writing, I would write for a few hours in the morning, do some massages at the women’s spa where I worked at the time, then come home and write some more. (I thought of myself then as a writer, as someone who would write, primarily.) Then, I felt the pain more in my forearms than my hands, but I made sure to get a lot of massage and acupuncture treatments myself (trading sessions with friends one of the perks of being in the business) sometimes having them spend an entire session on my arms and hands. That helped.

Now, my hands feel stiff and arthritic, the soreness radiating more from my tendons and joints than from the muscles. Some mornings it takes a little while before I can completely open my hands, and they feel stiff all the time. I recently bought some ice packs that I can strap to my wrists with Velcro when I get home from the spa. They help some.

Friday, 9:15 AM: Jenny

She did not really know what she wanted and was holding a lot all over, barely breathing. It was hard to find her in there, in her body. By 10:00 I had pretty much covered everything, did some acupressure to pass the time even though I knew it would not work on her. Very faint pulses, a tiny release. At 10:09, I started on her feet. At 10:12, repeated everything I just did on her feet. 10:14, adjusted the sheet. I waited a beat to tell her to take her time getting up so that it would be 10:15, maybe 10:16, when she got up from the table and saw the clock.

*****

They have a rule here: 60 minutes on the table (or 90 minutes, depending on what they paid for). A lot of spas will say it’s a 60 minute massage, but the therapists end five, even seven minutes early, and take their time starting so the client only gets fifty minutes or less of actual massage. Here, the management prides itself on fulfilling its promise of the full hour or ninety minutes of massage time, and they even encourage us to go over the purchased hour by a few minutes. During the orientation I was given when I began working here, I was told not to change the time in the treatment rooms because the front desk girls check all the clocks every morning to make sure that they are set right.

*****

Sunday, 2:00 PM: Jan

From the way she had her arms folded into the sides of her body and how her eyes kept blinking open when she was on her back, and the way she kept sighing, but not in a “ahhh that feels good” way, but rather a “when will this be over” way, it seemed that she really did not enjoy getting massages. Like, at all. If I had to guess, I would have said that someone bought her a gift certificate a year ago, and it was about to expire, so they had been nagging her to use it because her birthday was coming up again soon and they wanted to get her another spa gift certificate since they had no idea what else to buy her since she had everything she wanted, and what she didn’t have, she would buy herself, so they wanted to get her something “she wouldn’t get for herself,” which this was, but there was a reason for that. Also, because she was kind of uptight, they were hoping massage might help loosen her up a bit. She and I both knew that it wouldn’t. But that’s okay. We all have our crosses to bear. I did what I could to get us through the session with as little unpleasantry and as much dignity as possible.

*****

I have not worked in a spa since before the dawn of Yelp. This place is generally rated well, and people leave reviews, sometimes giving the therapist’s name. I was told when I started that I should ask my clients to fill out the comment cards they have at the front desk, but I rarely do. It seems like kind of a buzzkill to me, to ask anything of them at that point, when they are so relaxed. After six months we are evaluated based on the comments we get from customers, and how many requests we get for repeat sessions. I have not been here long enough to have racked up many of either, but we’re supposed to maintain a high rating or our pay scale could decline.

On campus, students are emailed evaluation surveys to fill out for each class. Instructors are retained, or not, based in part on student comments. My students evals tend to be positive overall, although I have gotten a couple of “she’s rude to students” comments.^[2] This semester we had furlough days over spring break. This was a strategic move on the part of the administration: we could not withhold our labor on the days we would not be paid since we were not in class anyway. Still, the union leadership encouraged us not to do any grading or prep work during that time, so everything piled up and some assignments took forever to grade and return after break. I modified my syllabi to accommodate for time spent discussing post-inauguration events and then again for time spent discussing our on-going budget crisis, and then again for the furloughs, so the semester felt very disjointed and chaotic. I have no idea what my students will say in their evaluations, but it does not matter if the comments are positive or not because, thanks to the state budget crisis, my pay is being cut regardless.

*****

Friday, 9:00 AM: Dan

Shorts, flip flops, texting, maybe thirty. When I asked if there was anything he wanted me to focus on he did not look up from his phone when he said that no, he just wanted to treat himself. As he followed me to the treatment room I could tell from the rhythm of his sandals hitting his heels that his gate was a bit off. Even while he was face down on the table, I could smell the alcohol on his breath. (Is that rum at 9 a.m.?) I wanted to end the session early, per Spa policy on intoxicated clients, but it was not worth the hassle. I worked on him until he fell asleep, sat, scrolled through the news feed on my phone with one hand while pretending to do trigger point work on his back with the other.

*****

One good thing about working here is that our uniform shirts get washed for us along with all the sheets. The shirts are cotton v-necks with the spa logo on them, and comfortable enough. Anything worn when doing massage will get oil on it, so it’s convenient to not have to worry about what to wear. The shirts are kept neatly folded and stacked by size in the back room with all the linens. You can grab one when you get to work, change in your treatment room, then toss it in the laundry when you leave.

The laundry is done by a handful of women who are there in different configurations of twos and threes during all my shifts. Two of them are sisters, and speak little English, and there are a couple of teenagers, their daughters, who speak a bit more English than their mothers.

After the election I felt afraid for them. I did not want to assume that because the women who did the laundry at the spa did not speak English, they were undocumented and therefore in danger of being harassed and/or deported. But it seemed like many immigrants from certain countries were now under threat of being harassed and/or deported whether they were undocumented or not. I wanted to say something, but what? “Hi. I know I am basically a stranger to you and I don’t want to call attention to what might be a precarious situation, but I’m sorry things are so shitty right now?”

There was a day when businesses were closing in protest against ICE raids, and I wondered if the spa might be closed. We stayed open. I wondered if the owner considered closing. I wondered how much he pays the women who do the laundry, and if they could have afforded the spa to close for a day. I wondered if they ever get massages.

On campus, everyone was on high alert. There was a panel about what to do if ICE agents show up at the door of your classroom, asking for your students. There were flyers circulating in various languages with information about immigrant rights and what to do if ICE agents show up at the door to your home.  I brought with me to the spa a couple of the flyers and left them on the table in the break room, where there were usually some magazines and maybe a Red Eye newspaper.

*****

Wednesday, 1:00 PM: Bill

I kept wondering if it had started raining yet because I had to pick up my kids at school and I would probably be a little late, which meant they would be standing out in the rain until I got there. It was a furlough day on campus, so I took an extra shift at the spa. I had been looking to do more massage work since my divorce, so I could pay my rent because adjunct work doesn’t cut it, but it took a while to find a place that could accommodate my schedule. Most spas want a commitment of at least two shifts, if not three, a week, and at least one day of the weekend. With my Monday-Thursday teaching schedule, I could only work on Fridays, and my ex and I have 50/50 custody, so I’ve got my kids every other weekend and some weekday evenings. But this place was fine with my limited availability, and they pay pretty well for the industry (about a 32% cut, plus tips, tips being a benefit of spa work, as opposed to a chiropractor’s office, where tips tend to be less lucrative). A lot of therapists work here, with ten treatment rooms, and I can fill in for people when they take days off or call in sick, which happens often. I had thought for a while that instead of taking a spa job, I might rebuild my private practice, which, at one point, finally, before my kids, was flourishing, but I had somehow forgotten how much time and energy it took to establish it in the first place. Plus, I would either have to rent a space or work out of my home, and I can’t afford more rent, and my apartment is not a great setup for seeing clients. There is also something luxurious about just showing up, doing the massages, and leaving. For now, it’s worth the cut they take from the fee.

I heard thunder. I had to end the session a few minutes early. Sorry, “Bill.”

I rushed from the spa to the Chicago Public School my kids attend. Their teachers have also had furlough days because of lack of funding from the state. There has been talk of ending the school year three weeks early because the district might not have the money to stay open.

When my kids got in the car, soaked, they wanted to know what was for dinner. I don’t know, I said. Let’s go shopping.

*****

There was a press conference on campus yesterday about the furlough days imposed by the administration, and the lack of funding from the state. I was glad it might be in the news because it didn’t seem like anyone outside the walls of the university knew about what was going on. Certainly it did not seem like anyone was talking about it, like anyone cared. I get it. With everything that had been going on since the election, there was way too much to be upset about. Everyone is a little news weary. This state budget issue is just one more thing on top of everything else.

The faculty union leadership had implored us to show up at the rally, and to bring our classes, to tell our students to come. “We need bodies there,” they had said. We needed to make it look like we had a lot of support and that this was a big deal. The press conference took place during one of my English 101 classes, so at the beginning of the hour, I told my students not to unpack their things because we would be heading across campus to attend the rally. They had not seemed very interested in the budget situation when we had discussed it previously, and I had wanted them to care. I told them that a college education is about so much more than what you learn in books. It’s about learning how to think, and figuring out who you are and the kind of person you want to be. I said that sometimes in life, you just need to show up, to be present. To pay attention. I reminded them that the state had promised money for MAP tuition grants but didn’t follow through, that the grant money had not been allocated since we do not have a budget, so those grants were funded with reserve money from the university. Now, the furlough days, which amount to a salary cut for faculty and staff, had been instituted to make up for the deficit. In other words, I said, your grant is paid for by my salary cut. Now, we are asking you to show up.

One of the students asked if I was going to take attendance at the rally.

When we got to the steps of the classroom building, there were news cameras and a small crowd. Most of my students has dispersed on our way across campus, and I did not see them at the rally. The few who did show up left shortly after we arrived. It is possible that I pressured them too much. I know that when I was 18, the age of most of these students, I did not know what kind of person I was, or who I wanted to be, and I probably would not have known how to care about what was going on, would have been too overwhelmed and intimidated by people who understood these things and cared deeply about them, and all of this would have been another reason to quit school, which I did.

Several of my creative writing students, juniors and seniors and grad students who had been around for a while, spoke, and did so eloquently, about what the university and their time there has meant to them.

I went home and cried, both uplifted and completely demoralized at the same time.

*****

Saturday, 10:30 AM: Meagan

I recognized immediately that she was someone who would not let go. The yoga outfit she wore probably cost more than most of what was in my closet, combined. I felt her glide down the hallway behind me as I lead her to the treatment room where she sighed and dropped her Prada bag on the counter and began to remove her shiny watch as she told me that she had no specific needs, she just really needed a massage.

Various “Meagans” had lain on my massage table countless times over the years. Her tissues were well hydrated and supple. My hands slid easily over the surface of her body, which was smooth as a sting ray, most likely from sea salt scrubs and a full menu of other spa treatments. She had a fresh tan line. The giant stone on her wedding ring glistened in the light of the battery operated candle.

I kept my hands moving and did not attempt to let the pressure permeate beyond the superficial layers of her skin. I was part of a team of people who serviced her body: the person who cut her hair, the person who did her highlights, the person who did her lash extensions, the person who did her mani/pedi, the person who did her bikini wax, the person who did her facials, body scrubs and wraps, her personal trainer, her stylist.

We were both a little bored.

This was where I was supposed to let go of my ego and let my hands do their work and find that place where release can happen. I was supposed to change my mind, to have learned something about myself, to recognize that I had misjudged her. But at the end of the session she was the same and I was the same as when the massage began. She tipped generously.

Friday, 2:30 PM: Paul

It was the guy who injured his back changing a light bulb. He said his wife made him come back. “I’ve been feeling good,” he said, “but she wants to make sure I don’t throw my back out again. She hates when I walk around wincing.” He shrugged and grinned. “Well, twist my arm, I guess.”

His back felt much better than it had the last time, and he enjoyed the session. It was nice to see him again. Plus, he gave me a good review.

*****

Waiting underground for the train, I hope I will get to sit down, but I know better than to expect a seat on a northbound Red Line on a Friday afternoon. I peel open the small manilla envelopes containing my tips to see what I got today. I don’t know how much longer I will be able to do this work, how long my hands will last. I don’t know that I can really support myself and my kids on what I make at both jobs. I don’t know how the university will continue to function without funding from the state, and whether or not my teaching job will exist next year, or, for that matter, what any of our cultural institutions will look like down the road. I try to tell myself that we will all be alright, but it is getting harder to imagine.

Then the train arrives and the doors open, I fold myself into the crush of bodies heading home from work.

^[1] Names of all clients have been changed.

^[2] A couple of years ago there was an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education about how female-identified instructors are much more likely to be referred to as “rude” by students than are male-identified instructors, the theory being that female instructors are expected to be “nurturing” and when that is not the experience a student has, the female instructor is deemed “rude,” as opposed to “strict” or “rigorous” or “demanding”, comments male instructors receive for the same behavior. I have come to disregard comments about my alleged rudeness, although I am sure that the administrators who make decisions about my retention status do not. At the same time, I got those comments when I was going through my divorce, and it is entirely possible that I was, in fact, rude to students.