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7:25 p.m. - October 12, 2001 Anyway, that's why I was surprised when I went in for a massage at this spa, and the therapist and I began talking as she rubbed oil onto my skin. She was from Texas and had a gentle accent and a soft voice. "They've been so unfriendly to me here," she sighed as she worked my legs. "The accent, the assuming I wear cowboy hats and milk cows for fun. You know, when I was growing up, Chicago was something you strived for. It wasn't that we wanted to leave, but if you were to? Chicago would be admirable." "It's not known for its friendliness, I mumbled from inside the pillow. "You want easygoing, go farther west. Colorado. Oregon. Washington. Not California, it doesn't count as west. Ditzymall bullshit." She flinched at the swear. "Well, I never liked California. I liked Colorado, I wanted to live there. But when my fiance got his job here.." she shrugged, "that's where we went." "And you really don't like it?" "Well, he's from Naperville. It's all right there. But we live in the city, on the border, in North Rogers Park. You know where that is? And three times my car's windows and headlights have been smashed. Nobody else on the street. Just me. And when you drive? Nobody cares about you on the road. I'm a courteous driver. In Texas, we are courteous drivers. I'm just not used to it." She asked me to turn over, outstretch an arm, and then went to get more oil. "It's like.. you're not allergic to eucalyptus, are you?.. good. I've stopped looking people in the eye at the grocery store. I did that in Texas all the time. People were happy to see you. You were happy to see people. You smiled, you talked, you were polite, in Texas. But here they just look at me all like 'why are you smiling at me?' I've stopped doing it." "It doesn't mean you have to stop," I said. "It's a certain exposedness they've got here, maybe. Maybe they don't feel like putting up a friendly facade. But you don't need to stop, you shouldn't, not if you don't think it's right." "Maybe not," she admitted, walking around the table. "But it's difficult not to imitate their hardness." It was much more, but when we were done, she left the room so that I could get back into my clothes. I got dressed, opened the door, and found her sitting at the counter. I wrote her a check. "Thanks," she said. "Good luck," I said. And I left. And her next patient probably came soon, and she'd forgotten what she'd said, but I was carrying a piece of her life around with me. My massage therapist; not a friend, not family, but a piece of her life nonetheless. And I wonder how many of these pieces I have and don't remember, or do remember, or what other people carry around of me and think of every once in awhile. It can't be anything accurately representative, because nobody is simply an action, or a short exchange, or an outfit, or a hairstyle, or a piece of music, or a drawing, or even a half hour conversation. I'm going about my life with this image of the masseuse in my head, a fully developed character, even though in truth I only possess a fraction of it. My image is wrong. If she ever read this, she'd be amazed at how wrong I am, the picture of this young, soft-spoken masseuse and her tall thin fiance with glasses who cooks her dinner at night and writes poetry, but coaches football by day. They drive out to country towns to visit his family while she sits with a painted smile, yearning for her own family in the South. He works odd hours, and she holds a nine to five job, but he has the typical job while she holds the one where she's not only masseuse, but sometimes therapist as well, and sometimes she gets people who are silent but tip her extraordinary amounts of money, and sometimes she just don't want to talk. Sometimes she just gets so sick of people's skin and their muscle aches, and rubbing rubbing rubbing that she cancels appointments and spends the rest of the day in a bar, drinking and wishing she were back where she came from, back where somebody would come into the bar, sit beside her, and strike up a good, Southern friendly conversation. And she asks her fiance that night why can't he consider moving back south, or even somewhere other than here, West maybe, out to Colorado. And he sighs in the maddening way men have and starts rationalizing, "honey, I can't because it would be too complicated with work and the mortgage and the dog and so on.." and she sighs and concedes. But the next day it's the same thing, only less and less, until someday, maybe, she can't feel it anymore. And they get married, maybe have children, and she'll tell them about her roots, and they'll look at her like she's talking about the Middle Ages, and she'll feel it even less. Things will turn out passable, I suppose. You see how wrong I could be? It's just the character sketch I have, hanging there, in my head. In awhile, I'll forget. I wonder what character sketch I am in other people's heads. Anyone want to tell me?
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