Unfurled

Globe Trotter

So after at least one month’s consideration, I bought my third bike. My first one was an 8th birthday present from my parents. They never taught me, and I never asked– in fact, the bike just sort of, rusted away. My second bike was a second-hand Dahon folding bike that my friend David found for me. I did try to learn on this one, but the small wheels made it a little hard to navigate and I kept crashing into things. I gave it back to him.

I had not intended to buy a bike on this specific day, but I happened to be walking past a buzzing bike store and must have caught a little of the vibe.

So I got me one. Now I just need to learn to ride it.

I’ve always been a fan of foot massages in theory. Mention foot massage and I get the phantom sensation of  warm water swishing around my feet  and soft hands tenderly rubbing down my soles and toes, rotating my ankle in pleasant sweeping circles, you get the picture. So when my friend invited me to go to Chinatown for a foot massage, despite the fact that I hadn’t slept for 30 hours (I work nights), I didn’t have the heart to say no.

After what seemed to be an interminable walk from the East Village (anything seems interminable after 30 hours of no sleep, even eating tiramisu at a dessert place featuring 8 different kinds of tiramisu and sipping on cool Italian soda, which we did as well– as sort of a mental apertif, if you will), we finally found ourselves walking on streets with signs no longer in English and lots of headless roasted ducks hanging in the windows.

We identified our destination by a sign reading:

BACK MASSAGE

FOOT MASSAGE

Seems like what we were looking for.

We walked down from the street level into, well, a basement.  A nice one to be sure–  the room was about the size of a large NYC living room, a flat screen TV along one wall with probably a 60 gallon fish tank next to it. The air was cool but muggy, and smelled of mildew with a Glade air freshener accent. There were three recliners in front of the TV and fish tank where, I suppose, clients are supposed to sit, but at that particular moment, we saw two girls slumbering in the two chairs in front of the TV. On screen, an attractive Chinese couple were gazing into each other’s eyes.

We probably should’ve turned around. Instead, “Hello?”

One of the girls sprang up from her chair and nudged her friend awake. Her friend must have been deep in sleep because it took at least 5 aggressive nudges before she finally stirred. They removed themselves from the chairs and pointed us into them.

The seat was a little warm, and the room was humid and stuffy, but I’m no princess, I can handle it. I stretch into my chair, they bring some cool water, I recline back a little, they pop in another DVD (another soap opera, my friend thinks in Cantonese), they bring a wooden tub filled with hot water, I stick my feet in. Ahhh…

This is why I deferred sleep. I felt the muscles in my legs, back and neck loosen. My eyelids felt heavy. I could feel my limbs get heavy. (I did get a little tense after I noticed these tiny quarter-sized turtles in this enormous tank filled to the top with water– I saw they’re little legs treading the water to stay afloat at the top.)  I closed my eyes.

One of the girls gently took my foot out of the water and gave my legs a rub down. (sigh) Then she started kneading my feet, and kneading. Ouch. Ow.  I felt the girl’s knuckles scrape down again the long bones of my feet and then just dig like a sharp screw into my heel. My foot reflexively curled in and my knee bent to take my foot out of harm’s way.

As I said, I’m no princess. I can handle it. I bravely force my knee to unbend and my foot to uncurl. My body is tense.

Her hands move to my toes. I feel her knuckle (or her nail, it’s hard to tell which– it’s just sharp, whatever it is) dig into the base of my big toe and dig its way up and then a special dig at the tip. To each toe, she does this. I think I nearly faint when she does the 4th toe (when do you ever feel your 4th toe?).  I assume my groans, profuse sweating and the fact that I had slipped in the chair to a near full recline would suggest to her that I’m uncomfortable. I hope that she lets up, but no– she moves to the other foot.  In my broken haze, I’m unable to say anything to stop her. Plus, I think part of me still says I’m no princess, I can handle it. (This is the same part that me that decided that working nights is actually a good idea.)

At some point, we make eye contact (I have heretofore kept my eyes squeezed shut because I can’t do anything but deal with what’s happening to my feet), “Hut?”

“Yes! yes! VERY painful!”

She nods and continues to knead. Hard. As if I’d said nothing. I nearly faint several more times and decide to kiss my dreams of becoming a spy good-bye since I’d be guilty of treason if anyone came near my feet.

My friend meanwhile is chuckling at the dog playing tricks on TV and trying to explain to his masseuse in the universal language of slo-English  that he knows that “gau” can mean “dog” or “8″ depending on its intonation.

The finale came when she put both my feet on the foot-stand, grabbed hold of paired toes while standing at my feet and threw my legs to form a sine wave out of these now broken limbs, 5 times. You know, for each pair of toes.

I walked out of there, yes. But I’m never letting anyone touch my feet again.