I belong, west virginia, mountain mama

I had, today, the most incredible massage I've ever had in my life. My housemate Livy is in school to be an aesthatician ( I thought for the longest time she had been saying anesthetician, which I now know isn't acutally a word, but I thought meant she was going be become an anesthesiologist.) Anyhow it turns out that rather than learning to sedate people, she's learning how to give them facials and waxing procedures and whatnot (I was a little less impressed but didn't let her know. ) It turns out that the school she goes to is across the street, also has a massage school, and on friday afternoon lets their students give full hour massages for $30 bucks! And it was incredible! They take their clients up to a large-ish room divided by little hospital-like curtains, each of which contains the massage table and a little tray of oils. It's very no-frills, and you hear just enough noise during the massage so as not to fall asleep. Which sucks, cause then you've missed the whole thing.
The masseuse I had was a very light-skinned pregnant black woman with a gold front tooth and hands like soft leather. She used a consistant pressure that I found so comforting it was like I instantly loved her. You know how some people just know how to touch other people? As though they themselves were feeling what they were doing to you? That's how mum caresses, and that's how this woman massaged.
It was the most present, loving, firm, consistent touch, and it occured to me in that moment that I felt grounded, and actually actively liking my body. That's not a feeling I experience often, in fact it's far more frequent for me to be condemning my body's thousand flaws and the ways in which it's let me down, but once in awhile I get to reflect on the ways that this vessel I'm in serves me that I'm usually oblivious to; the music I hear, produce and process every day, a really difficult run when my chest feels open and clear, being able to register and understand flavors in a dish, orgasms, making a perfect u-turn, post-surgery badmitton with Kate, these are things my body is completely responsible for that I overlook daily to critique the plane of my stomach.
For someone who was (and admittedly still is) so attentive to the character and shape of her body, who so strictly attempted to control and and manage it through such brutal methods, I was hopelessly ignorant to the ways in which I enjoyed it constantly, even through all the damage and stress it endured for me.

So I never got her name, this magician masseuse, but I absolutely intend to go back.