Full Circle
(This Blog entry is something that I wrote after going to Vegas in Sept of 2004.)
I was almost afraid to look into her eyes. I have been told throughout my life how important it is to look someone in the eyes when they are talking to me. But when I looked at her, I had the feeling she could see straight through me. I shifted on the vinyl bar stool she told me to sit on and watched her grab my finger in her left oiled fist and firmly slide to the tip of my weak uncalloused hand. “You have husband?” she asked in a rich Japanese voice. I looked up from the pressure on my fingers. “Yes,” I smiled. “I teach you this massage, and you do on him,” she firmly convinced me.
When I imagined my first time in Las Vegas, I didn’t see myself relaxing in a small shop on the strip learning priceless life-lessons from a Japanese woman I could only half-understand.
“You rub blood down through fingertip. Circulate blood. This here,” she pointed at the palm of my hand and made a circle, “this digestion, intestines. Relax. You have child?” “Yes, a seventeen month old girl.” She stopped squishing my intestines and smiled up at me, “You tell her she good girl all the time. That way she always think she good girl and she will not disappoint you.” She tightly pulled on each finger one by one and said. “That very important. You say to them, don’t be so stupid, they think they stupid and then act stupid. They believe they are what you tell them.” She held my hand and stretched it back , “hold for five,” and forward, “hold for five.”
“You get tired when you drive at night, you pinch eyebrows. Pressure points.” She squeezed the middle of my brow and worked her way to the ends. “You see better?’ She asked as I noticed my view get brighter and more crisp. “I think so” I said. She got up from her stool. “Put foot up here” she pointed. ‘What?” I asked. She slapped the chair. “Foot, yes, up!” she commanded. “Ok” I shyly lifted my foot to the top of the chair. I instantly thought, “Will she notice where my fake tan didn’t blend around the parameter of my foot?”
“You’re feet cold. Never let feet get cold!” She rubbed my foot quickly hand over hand bringing it back from the dead. “You watch! You do for husband! Always to heart. Always! You see blood go up, up, up to heart. Circulation.”
When she finished, I stood up having an overwhelming feeling of profound knowledge. I felt the newfound wisdom circulating itself through my body. I wondered if I had just been on a journey out of time. I felt like I had just encountered an angel. I realized that this petite Asian grandmother was really teaching me how to fish. You know the tale. “Give a man a fish, he’ll eat for one meal, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” I then realized that if the man learned to fish, and practiced until he was good at it, he would not only eat for a lifetime, but feed others as well and teach them how to eat for a lifetime.” Everything comes full circle. Even our blood.
