Mini-post: from ogre to human in one great massage

We’re getting down to the wire now, and naturally, various hiccups are happening. None are that big, but all are so frustrating. I’m learning a lot through this project, and one of the truths I’ve discovered is: there is a point in planning an event where you can’t do much more good and the remaining time just seems to breed challenges. When our cake lady, for example, informed us that she has a family issue to deal with (our hearts are with you, Isabelle), and would no longer be able to bring the cake to the wedding, we found ourselves scrambling to find a cake-savvy person to help us out. Shakira of Little Cakes was our first (and only) thought. I sent her an email and then threw my hands together, looked up at the sky, and surprised myself by saying, “Please, Shakira…” instead of “Please, universe/god/other diety.” It’s funny who we pray to, depending on the situation. Anyway, these little fires get put out—Shakira is coming and bringing the cake, something she is very used to handling—but the result is one stressed out couple. So the timing of our massage appointment was, indeed, perfect.

We visited Body Poets Massage Therapy this week, to have a massage—this was an offer from early in the project, and the moment they suggested giving us rubs close to the wedding, I knew this was a godsend. Sure enough, as we hobbled into the car and drove, hunched and tense, to their location on Kent Street, I knew this was excellent timing.

The studio is in an old converted house, on the top floor, and right away I liked the place. There’s something about having a massage in an office building that’s intrinsically uncomfortable, and I liked that this space felt old and solid and homey. Ellen Symons, owner and the RMT that worked on my wretched body, said she’d looked for a few years before finally finding this location, and I think it was worth the wait.

Brian was taken off to a different massage room by a therapist named Janet, and I was probably the most excited for him. Except for the physio-type manual therapy he’d tried with Katerina Pek, Brian has never had any sort of massage therapy. Considering the number of high-impact, full-contact sports he’s played, this seems a travesty. Off he went, and Ellen took me over to my own cozy room. Right away, I was please and impressed with how things went: Ellen said I could take off as little or as much clothing as I was comfortable with, which actually helped me relax more than usual and I stripped down to my skivvies without another thought. Ellen also took time to be sure I knew some basic ground rules: that I should be comfortable and okay with the treatments used, that I had complete say in what was done, and that basically we would stay within my comfort zone, both physically and internally. Again, I felt some of my nerves relax as she shared this, and I felt really safe to start the treatment.

I lay down on one of the most comfortable massage beds I’ve ever been on, and Ellen began working on my lower half. I should explain: I had written to Ellen a few days before the appointment and asked if she could work on my body from the hips down, instead of on my back, as this seemed to be where I was carrying my stress and pain these days. Ellen happily agreed, and she reviewed what my pain symptoms were, then went to work. We found a dozen sore spots that I didn’t even realize were sore, and Ellen worked on them, checking in with me consistently to be sure we didn’t exceed my pain tolerance.

I absolutely loved my massage. I felt the circulation increasing and moving under the pressure of experienced hands; tight muscles I’d stopped paying attention to were found, worked on, and released in better shape. I felt a bit sheepish partway through my massage as I realized I’d slowly disclosed about a half-dozen injuries and damages I’ve done to myself over the years, and wondered if I sounded as much like a ‘lemon’ as I felt. But I’m certain that a long-time pro like Ellen has heard far worse before.

We finished up and I got dressed, and met Brian back in the reception area. I knew right away he’d had a wonderful massage by the beatific grin on his face. Janet had treated him to some good rubbing on his (always sore) mid-to-lower back, but his favourite part was the cranialsacral therapy: a type of massage done to the head and neck. He talked happily the whole way home about how nice Janet was, and how they’d chatted away, and he continued to grin a little foolishly the whole way home.

I suffered a bit the next day when my calves, rubbed pretty intensively, decided they would fight back a bit and become stiff and sore. I did a yoga podcast on the living room floor, though, and at the end when I went into the resting pose, I fell asleep for a half-hour. Naps don’t really come naturally to me, so this is a good sign of how relaxed my body was. And really, the best testimony to the work of the women at Body Poets would have been a photo taken of Brian and I driving home from our appointment: both of us would have appeared several inches taller in our seats, and much less like hunchbacked ogres than we’d seemed an hour before.

Big thank you’s go out to Ellen and Janet at Body Poets Massage Therapy. Thank you for the wonderful treatment and for being a part of P:P. We heartily and happily recommend this wonderful place to all our readers; I am certain that we’ll be back, ourselves, if only to see that silly relaxed grin on Brian’s face again.