I unexpectedly find myself lying on a bed of amethyst crystals while listening to Whitney Houston implore, “When you believe” in the background. No, I am not filming a My Little Pony episode. Let me back up.
I was offered a free haircut by a master stylist who owns her own salon, really sweet lady, and she gave me a great cut. My fellow had helped her with a flat tire in our church parking lot (because he is Fellow and saves people even on his day off) She wanted to thank him, but she looked at his shaved head and said, “Well, I can’t offer you much of a haircut, but I can do something for your wife”.
So, here I am, cheating on my stylist, (Reede, at Chemically Addicted) hoping he will forgive me for saying yes to layers and baby bangs. This lovely stylist, let’s call her Honey Bee, has squeezed me in between clients. She doesn’t have time to wash my hair, she just pulls it out of its domestic dirty bun (I am embarrassed) and starts flying away with the scissors. To make up for the lack of shampooing she offers me a rejuvenating nap in the back on her magic bed of crystals. Honey Bee is so infectiously positive, it is nearly impossible to say no.
So, that’s how I find myself lying with greasy hair on a cot covered in crystals in a room not much bigger than a broom closet. She hurriedly puts an eye mask on my head that flashes light periodically, like I am just beside a car accident. She puts pressure on both my arms and then is surprised my legs are exactly the same length. I am impressed with myself for being aligned, as if I have anything much to do with that. Then she puts headphones on that are droning a mechanical hum that is supposed to…help me relax…? and enter a state of deep sleep if I allow it? She tucks me in while chatting away happily about the body being a temple. I am wrapped up with a Nasa engineered electromagnetic blanket…? that is supposed to rejuvenate every cell in my body. I think. I didn’t quite catch it all.
Just as she heads out, leaving me alone with the crystals and the ambulance lights and the droning, I hear Fellow has come in to my surprise, to meet me for lunch. She tells him I am taking a rejuvenating nap for twenty eight minutes and he’s offered a nap right after me if he likes. And Honeybee is off after stuffing a brochure about the electromagnetic magic in Fellow’s big hands. I start to pull up my mask, and assure him we can go, but he says, “No, relax. This is her gift. Enjoy.”
So, I lie there with the headphones and the eye mask, the droning, the lights, while Fellow sits beside me and holds my hand. A couple of people argue rather loudly in mandarin in the next room and the pop music blares on. I giggle like mad. Fellow starts to chuckle. I know a lot of research went into all this and I know Honey Bee is absolutely sold on it and as fellow says, maybe after a few weeks a person might notice a difference…but the lights are starting to give me a headache and I think I’d rather go for lunch. So, after a good solid ten minutes, I sneak off to get a burger at the diner with shoestring fries.
We head out for groceries and then pack up the dog and car and we pick up the kids and head to Bowen for the weekend. It’s raining hard and heavy and the great big red cedars droop their laden boughs dark and lovely in the foreground of an ocean view. As the sun sets over our Settlers of Catan and S’mores, the ski hill across the Sound lights up the whole sky with its stairway to heaven. What a beautiful conclusion to a very difficult week.
Later, when my Fellow and I are alone together, I think of my cells. I never think of my cells. Are they the least bit rejuvenated? I think of the oxygen in the breath and the fascinating intricate unseen fireworks that must go off to create a pleasure response to a tender touch. I take a good long lingering look at the temple that is his body. How utterly amazing the network that makes up his physical existence. The miracle that nothing goes terribly wrong with this heart beat, with that heart beat, with this heart beat again. Someday that heart will stop. So will mine. What a thought, as I give him some extra special attention. These bodies function so magically and so strong. Right now. In this moment. We are alive. I forget. I forget the magnitude of life that goes into life. I exhale wow. 
