The Hobble

Vacation appeals to full-time massage therapists. First, one gets a whole week without having to do any massages. Vacation gives me a chance to relax and people-watch without using that part of the brain usually hunting looking for knots and structural anomalies. I can spend time watching seabirds or the back of my eyelids without thinking about the schedule.

We took off in the car, heading 160 miles up the coast of California to Santa Barbara, a drive that entailed going through the dreaded Los Angeles traffic. We took advantage of one of the freeway infamous signal alerts, a condition that means no one is going anywhere anytime soon, to stop for lunch and stretch our legs. Not having to be somewhere exactly on time has its advantages.

As we neared our destination, I felt a knot in my left lower back starting to throb. I had done all the driving, something I really shouldn’t. My back was letting me know it was not happy.

I should have just gotten on with the stretching when we reached our hotel. But I wanted to get the stuff out of the car and go to dinner. I could stretch later, I told my lower back. After dinner I forgot all about stretching and went right to bed.

Three days later, after exploring all the tourist spots like the mission and the waterfront, I realized that I hadn’t stretched at all. My back was tight, but I had been on a brain vacation, apparently, and forgot some basics. I’d put on my sun hat and forgotten my back.

The lumbar muscles decided to let me know how ignored they had been. I lay on the floor, a folded towel under the sacrum with knees bent to loosen lordosis. My back was too tight even for McKenzie stretches.

The next day I admitted to needing a vacation from vacation. I looked up local spas and massage places on Yelp, and picked out one that seemed to do good therapeutic work.

This tiny little spa had good vibes and a good therapist, but I noticed that the room was so small she had to brace against the wall and bend at the hips to do pressure strokes. She used her wrist for pressure strokes, dragging fingers, something that normally would send me screaming from the room. But she had a great touch, and despite the suicidal body mechanics had apparently been doing great massages for years.

Just as I would with stressed-out clients, she gave me some advice on stretches and lumbar supports for car seats. And most important she told me to get a few more massages. In a way, the knot in my back was telling me something I needed to heed, she said.

Lesson learned.

Yes, I go back to my practice recharged and raring to go, with a better understanding of how people can sometimes forget the basics even though they know them by heart. A caring massage therapist is aware of the human condition and imparts to one’s clients that it is OK to give yourself a break when you are less than perfect - as we all are.