As It Turned Out

My anticipated visit to the masseuse yesterday did not turn out as planned. In the first place, I was met upon arrival at the pharmacy not by Ayu but by another masseuse who said that she was Ayu. Now, this may be, as there are a lot of Ayu's here in Bali, but she definitely was not the Ayu I was looking for.

Ah well, let her proceed, I thought, for, in any case, I did not feel comfortable with saying, 'No, I don't want you!' So I ended up enduring an hour long massage that was pretty much a waste of time and money. What I wanted was a deep, 'invasive', aggressive massage that would make my recalcitrant muscles stand up and pay attention. What I got was an airy rub down with enough oil to boil a pot of fried chicken in.

I went home in the same pain I had gone out with, and by the afternoon was feeling so disappointed that I said to myself, 'Well hell, I'll just go to the place up the street that offers a good old fashion excruciating Balinese massage!'

And excruciating it was! I had been there in the past, but had forgotten the extent of the torment these young women are able to inflict, skillfully separating the most tender muscles from whichever cavity they have attempted to hide in and then mercilessly twisting and gouging the poor things until they scream in pain.

"Better?" the girl says.

"Ngughk!"

"Okay. I go deeper, yes?"

"Ngughk glokh!"

It was difficult to speak, for my jaw had locked from clenching my teeth.

It is quite amazing how hands, skillfully employed, can so rearrange muscle and bone, reach right into the skeleton from the back and tug at one of the ribs in the front, turn the collarbone into crescent wrench to be used against the bolts that connect your neck to your head.

In short, Boy did that girl beat me up! I mean, she totally kicked my ass--all 95 pounds of her.

And this seems to have been a good thing. It seems that my muscles needed a good ass kicking; for though they are a bit sore today, it is a normal sort of soreness, the way muscles may feel when they have been overworked, rather than the general, inappropriate, causeless pain that has been residing so long in my neck, shoulders and back. It is as if the pain, through this kneading and poking and stabbing and twisting process, has now been focused and defined just at the top of one shoulder--cornered and contained, one might say.

Oh, I don't know if this relief will last, or how long it may last. In the past, the problem has insisted on reasserting itself over time; but for today, anyway, I'm feeling much better than usual, and am simply enjoying the relief one day at a time.