When the going gets tough, the tough get going – to the spa.

If you live in Los Angeles, you find yourself with no shortage of places to go which would gladly clean you out – body, mind and pocket, all in one fell swoop, before you can say in your best Valley girl accent – totally!

It has been a rough month and a tough one.  Not knowing which way was up was getting to be a problem.  I felt like I was thrown into the washing machine, wet and sudsy and with all shapes and colors of dirty smelly clothing, turning and churning at break neck speed – getting doused and delaminated.  And that was all before the never-ending spin cycle began.  And then the machine stopped mid-cycle leaving me still soiled and now, wet to boot.

A good pity party was in order so I cried. I cried the good cry – loud and snotty, big fat tears cascading down my chipmunk cheeks which these days are, thanks to gravity and middle age, sinking lower and lower to become – heaven forbid, formidable jowls. It felt good.  It really did.   To sob and howl my way to unstoppable  hiccups.  Cry with nobody to tell me not to.  Bawl my eyes out so much and for so long until the ‘why me’ turned into ‘why not me’; until there were no more tears left. One look in the mirror and I knew the only person who would not judge me would be the person who would see it all and say little.   

And so I took off my watch, left my phone to charge at home, got my bag and headed out.  Olympic Spa is located in one of the more dodgy parts of Koreatown in Los Angeles, not that any part of Koreatown is particularly non-dodgy. At Olympic and Norton, the spa advertises itself by a faded blue sign with an arrow pointing north.  In the driveway, you hand your keys to the valet – who will not charge you by the way – a rare occurrence in this town. You then walk through a glass door, down a dark carpeted ramp at the end of which two pretty little Korean ladies greet you with a  hearty ‘herro’.  For a $100 you get a wristband with a key that has a number. Mine was 57.  You then walk through an unassuming wooden door to the communal area where you find your locker, disrobe, tie your hair up, grab a towel and then enter the belly of the spa. There is no music, no art, no plants – real or artificial to distract. No cell phones, computer monitors, television screens, and no talk.  There you find just the simple elements of life.  Stone floors, water  - both hot and cold, still and flowing; oxygen, the sisterhood in its collectively magnificent and diverse birthday suit, and silence. One tends to become completely unaware of time for one simple reason that there are very few places to find it ticking here – not on a watch on your wrist, nor it flashing across your smart phone.  There are no windows either to tell whether it is day or night. Time here is a non-factor – perhaps a male - forbidden.

Whatever had happened to me in the past month – all the gore and its gizzard , could not touch me here.  Here I was in Mother’s womb. Here was a place I could be me - warts and all. No judgment. No words. Women of all shapes, sizes and colors with tiny and big feet pattered about quietly on the warm floor, edging their way into hot and cold pools, slipping into a steam bath one minute and sauna the next, communing around a narrow stream of water washing themselves and each other.  Mothers, daughters, grandmothers, sisters, friends and total strangers gathered here, letting out a collective sigh of relief - whispering, soothing, scrubbing, rinsing – healing.

My number was called and I was ushered into the inner sanctum now, a place with 5 cots each covered  with plastic cushions.  At the front of one of them was my personal caregiver - “Oh” who greeted me with my second ‘herro’ of the day.  For the next hour and 20 minutes I became Oh’s baby.  She gave me simple instructions – ‘on your face’, ‘on your back’, ‘to the side’, ‘up’, ‘down’.  She went to work on me by first scrubbing every inch, drawing dead skin from places I didn’t know I had skin let alone the dead type.  Next came a milk and then a lemon rinse which was then followed by a magnificent massage, head to toe.  The tight knots gradually surrendered to the magic, in time giving up the dreaded ‘Oh No’ to Oh – this time the yes variety.  I fell into a dreamless sleep – my very first of this month – 100% quality REM. I woke up as she took away the cucumber slices from my eyelids and the matching bags beneath, wiped my face one last time with a warm damp cloth and let me open my eyes to her sweet smiling face telling me ‘now you go’.  She placed flip flops on my feet, put my robe on and even knotted its belt and said ‘you good now’. Pure Bliss. That was what the treatment was called and it was.

I emerged from the spa glowing.  No make up Oh had advised, so I put none on– not even a hint of lipstick.  It was pure me in a cotton summer dress, flip flops and my little bag that found its way to the canteen where I devoured an enormous orange cut in eighths.  I tipped heavily.

On the way home, I was reminded of my visits to the garmabeh with my grandmother. Those memories belong to the dinosaur age – or as we say in Persian – ahde daghyanoos in a Tehran that gets more exotic in my mind with each passing year.   She must have taken us, me and my brother, throughout the year, but I only remember the visits during the winter months.  If I close my eyes, let my mind crawl ever so slowly into the past, erase the time factor and turn on the projector to show the movie of my childhood, one snapshot at a time, I see her telling us to get ready for ‘hamoom’.  We would leave the house in the afternoon, before the sun had set. I can hear the crunch of the snow under my boots as we traipse through the streets to reach the alley at the end of which lay our destination.  Upon entering the establishment, a warm waft of humid air would engulf us, all the more delicious in contrast to the cold outside.  Bagoom, our house maid would be told to keep an eye on us as she would go and get our ticket with the number.  It would feel like a lifetime before our number would be called at which point we would be ushered into a place not too dissimilar to the one I visited today.  Promptly the scrawny scrubbing lady, aka “dallak” would appear wearing nothing but a black bra and briefs  and a scowl.   Wet and wrinkly with braided hair tied at the top of her head in the shape of a crown she would approach us ‘kisseh’ in hand.   My grandmother, never one to waste time and good money, would tell her to get to work if she wanted a good tip.  And so she would go for the kill, scrubbing me and my brother till our skins tingled and turned pink.  Grandmother would then step in and give us each a good rinse sticking her hand in all our nooks and crannies despite our loud objections.  Bagoom would be then called to carry us one at a time to the room adjoining the entry of the hamoom where towels were laid for us to stand on. She would then dry and dress us – set us in a corner cross-legged and waiting – waiting for Mamani to give us our treat – oranges – cut up in quarters.  If I listen carefully I can hear her voice telling us not to drip orange juice on our fresh clean clothes.   We would happily suck at our treats listening to Bagoom’s howling next door as the ‘dallak’ would be peeling her skin off, it sounded, with her super scrubber reserved for dirtied hard working house maids.

When we hurt deeply, when life throws us one curve ball after another, finding ourselves in this washing machine of life, in the fast cycle – we look for a breather, a respite.  A good cry, a good wash, cut up oranges and precious memories soothe and remind us life is well – many cycles and this is just one.  It will stop. It will pass and we will come out of it, more than likely squeaky clean and ready for the next round.