This is an excerpt from my book-in-process, "Spavalous: Adventure can be real happiness." Stay tuned for more!
Chapter one: Pod Aboard!
Like a lot of divorced single parents, I was drowning in debt. Court costs, legal fees, and the adjustment from a two-income household to a single-income struggle added to the accumulation of gray hairs sprouting from my scalp by the time I was ready to turn forty. Plus, I was working and going to school to earn my degree in writing.
Yet, I wanted to live, so I followed suit in the American way: I re-mortgaged my home and cashed out on some equity. But instead of budgeting for groceries and sending payment-in-full to my lawyer, I packed up my tween son for a bonding experience with his father, and I headed to Europe for two months. My educational immersion program, a five-week Art History course to study the Renaissance period between Bruges, Belgium and Venice, Italy, was worth enough college credit to expedite my degree. And in between my studies, I would utilize a long weekend break to shop in Paris. At the end of my program, I would return to the city of romance to meet up with my fiancé, Andrew. Although we both knew there would never be marriage in the legal sense, we decided to enjoy Paris and embark on a 12-day Mediterranean cruise, calling this our honeymoon.
As exotic as it sounds, by the time five weeks passed and I was ready to board the Princess ship in Venice, I was overwrought with grief. I missed my son, my family and friends, and there was only one remedy I knew of to help ease the pain: I scheduled a body treatment onboard.
This was not your average massage, the attendant informed me, but I was more than ready to invest in some intense treatment, making it easy to book the ultimate Lotus Spa experience — the Musclease Aroma Spa Ocean Wrap. Provided with a robe, I dutifully followed my massage therapist into a large room with its own shower stall and two tables: one standard massage table and one table with enough surrounding gear that it looked to have been on loan from NASA.
I climbed right in.
A seaweed mask containing a warming blend of pine and rosemary essential oils was applied to my body before I was wrapped in foil. I felt like I had been prepped for grilling. Next thing I knew, the massage therapist stepped back and flipped a switch that sent a mechanical leaf, made of heavy nylon covered insulation, to wrap around me.
I was in a cocoon, or pod as it's referred to by the massage therapist.
For the next 15 minutes, my head and feet, which were the only parts of my body left unwrapped, were tenderly massaged to ease my muscles and calm my spirit. I closed my eyes and decided to go with the flow and fight a possible case of claustrophobia until the pod opened. Slowly, I was released to the world again, completely naked to this woman who barely knew me.
Instructed to slowly sit up and exit the pod, I was escorted to the already running shower stall to wash off the seaweed concoction that remained on my body. The treatment continued as I dried myself off and headed to the massage table, where for the next half hour I was kneaded with such strength that I thought the massage therapist was literally on top of me. As she dug her elbows into the tightness in my back, it was a hurt that felt so good.
An hour and a half later, I walked out of the room, nearly blind from dilated pupils, but relaxed. I felt reborn, but in a positive way, unlike the story I’ve been told of my actual birth.
When my mother gave birth to her second daughter, my father voiced his disappointment and made my mother cry. At least, this is the story my mother loves to share with me. She coolly explains that I “wasn’t a boy, like the doctor predicted and your father expected,” and adds, “I cried because I thought you were a monkey — you were so ugly.”
Visit www.spavalous.com for more information about Charlene Peters.
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