At the spa. Spa’s here are different than the spas in America…… I was thinking I need to relax and what a good way to relax, but go to a spa. Ok, here is how this went. I show up with my bathing suit and I pay my money, and half ass understand what the nice lady told me in Italian. I go down these stairs and change into my bathing suit, get a towel and head to the pool. It was heated and you could go outside in the cold and be in a heated pool. I’m usually not one for public bathing, but I’m turning over a new leaf and trying to experience things. You Know….Not be so closed to everything………. well I had a good time, it was cool kinda like being in a huge ass hot tub.
Then they announced that the spa was opening… so I went and washed off then headed to the spa. I get there and I think I know what the sign said…. and I thought naaaaaaaaa….. so The lady was giving me instructions really fast and i asked her to slow down and then she asked if I spoke English and I was like ooh yes. So she started to explain to me that i did not need to wear my bathingsuit.. i explained i was a-ok with having mine on. So after she told me it was not optional, I may have given her a funny look and I thought about it and thought.. well hell ‘while in rome do as the romans do’. How bad could it be? Pretty fucking bad. I started out with some hot water foot bath and then got sprayed down with cold freaking water and then put back in hot water… I had to do this twice to ge my body ready for the spa, then she went through a whole plan that lasted like 3 hours….. so I went into the first step, which was that hot water cold water torture treatment. Then headed for the sauna.. I have never been in a sauna… so I reluctantly went in there and dropped my towel, I sat there awkwardly for about 5 minutes.. then started looking around…. people really didn’t give a shit about me or what I looked like…. and some of the women in there didn’t care what they looked like, especially the one that came in and spread eagle across the sauna from me…. so, while I was sitting there it dawned on me that american’s are prude about sex and nakedness…. so, I began to think, well this is liberating and making me trust myself, maybe even love the skin I’m in, which is generally a problem with women. So after my first round in there, then washing off in the exposed shower, I moved right along to the next room, which was a humid room. Holy shit i was sitting on slate senza towel and hot ass rocks in there, it felt like South Carolina in late august…. no shit.. I do remember thinking to myself “shit I paid for this”. But, after I Left that room, I went into some salt bath, then another humid room,and then a different sauna.. then i was feeling thirsty, so i relaxed with some kind of Luke warm herbal tea and then relaxed in the fancy sleeping room they had… and then topped it all off with a swimming pool that was at like 98 degrees and then back in the sauna.
Honestly after I got over the shock of being at a naked spa, it really wasn’t all that bad…
Here are a few things learned out of this experience:
- It’s only weird if you make it weird.
- It really doesn’t matter what you look like as long as you are secure with yourself.
- I just might be a prude.
- I was more self-conscious than I thought I was.
- I really needed to spend more time pampering myself.
- I need to love myself for who I am and all the scars I have, made me into who I am.
When I say scars, I don’t mean literal scars. I do have the appendectomy scar from when I was a child and bumps and bruises from the hard ranching life, but all the self doubt from shit people have said, or ideas I have construed in my head. All the negative thoughts on self and all the baggage bullshit I carry. They are all scars.. and like Hemingway said “we are all broken… that’s how the light gets in.”
That is the truth, I am beautiful no matter what I weigh, I am amazing no matter if I am practicing medicine or being a waitress. I am still me and nothing about me will change.. just my attitude.
So In this month that I have been here I can say I have been working on my “universe of peace and happiness“. And if you knew how hard it was for me to find my happiness and peace again and how long it took to rebuild my little universe. You would understand why the fuck I left where I was and am living out a dream I have had since I was a child and trying to fulfill a wish I made to Juliette in Verona many many years ago. I will get into that another time.
But, that is all for now.