Body and soul

I had a massage this week. I’ve been going to Jenny for years to get soothed and put back together again, but it had been more than six months since my last visit. She tut-tutted gently over the tightness around my neck and shoulders and dug deep, working the knots in the muscles around the scapula. I yelped.

“People who do massage should have regular massages themselves,” she said. “It needs to be a priority.”

“I know,” I replied through the face hole. “How often do you have one?”

A short pause. “Not as often as I ought. Every few months, but sometimes it’s longer than that.”

We contemplated our shared difficulty in allowing ourselves such a necessary indulgence, and I made the commitment there and then to have a massage at least every three months – more often if finances permit.

And it was bliss. Touch, oil, music, bliss. I floated.

Aside from self-care, an almost equally important reason to book in for regular sessions is to remind me of the full implications of what can happen during a treatment. Massage has value and I know the theoretical reasons why, but I only truly understand when I am a recipient.

***

Jenny works from her home, and when I arrived she put me in the open-air waiting room of her back garden while she finished with her previous client. I sat on a bench on a small, pleasantly unkempt lawn, the latter surrounded by a shoulder-high brick wall and bordered by packed flower beds: purple flowering aubrietia; forget-me-nots that matched the sky; large daisies with dark blue centres dotted with gold, and blue-white petals; a stone angel in the corner of the garden; and a purple lilac in full flower giving shade. A child’s multi-coloured rubber ball had been left on the seat next to me.

It was a sunny spring day - jeans and T-shirt weather, no need for a jacket. My winter-white feet and toes, temporarily liberated from sandals, luxuriated on the grass.

***

I haven’t yet mentioned here that I started seeing an ex- partner again a few months ago. We’ve remained friendly even when we haven’t been together, but I’m still somewhat surprised to report that this time around things are going very happily, in a relaxed, low-key way.

I'm well into middle-age. You need to know my history to realise what a gift this is.