I spent my Monday morning watching a Korean soap opera with my new naked Korean friends at a Korean spa on 6th Street. It really was my only hope after spending a LOVELY if not overly meat-filled evening with friends the night before at Lawry’s Steakhouse. I awoke feeling just fine really, but then after my yoga practice, I realized just how deep the indulgence was. I basically felt like I was stuck in the Fred Flintsone version of that dinner and needed to take drastic measures. I quickly looked on GROUPON and found the CRYSTAL SPA in Korea town, and made an immediate appointment for a scrub. I got there quickly and sent myself first to their quiet gym facility where I ran on the treadmill to the sounds of Maury Povich, whose subject matter did nothing to help remove the filth I was feeling.
Then, a shower and…. the baths. The hot pool was so hot and the cold pool, wow, just SO cold! But there I went, dunking back and forth, as per my garbled instructions. It was time for my scrub, and scrub she did. With every harsh move of the expert’s loofah I imagined myself moving away from my carnivorous upbringing and moving with radiant joy back toward the menu of the yogis. Theory-land indeed.
Upon returning to the pools, I found the TV had been turned on. There in the hot pool, sat 5 naked Korean women of various sizes and ages, fixated on a soap opera. It seems a young, handsome college student, at CW network type, was deeply doubting his ability to learn the new healing methods in order to pass his test. His heavy set side kick was also in deep doubt, but was using his energy toward the concocotion of a plan: how to best cheat so they both could pass their tests and ultimately make their families proud.
I figured, this was a two-fer: I took this field trip in order to alter my external experience of my body, but the funny soap story only enhanced the altering of my inner expeience. I know, way to make a connection out of the most mundane, but there it was.
Moving into the Jewish New Year when we are asked to move inward and scrub ourselves clean, if you will, the last place I thought I would find even MORE light shed onto this ritual was in the world of the Korean community.
How now to keep the scrubbing on my own? How to remain clean, aside from staying away from prime rib, and in preparation of what is needed of me, as well as in creative planning for the times that I cannot measure up perhaps to the tests at hand.
Something to play with this week perhaps, no matter your traditions.
OUR SCHEDULE WILL BE MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY as usual, at 9 am and 10:30 am respectively
THEN we will be OFF on THURSDAY Sept.25
So that we can join in a collective scrubbing of the soul…
In hope,
Michelle
