Norma the Shaman

I’m pretty sure that at some point during Shaman School they emphasized the importance of not being a klutz. Norma missed that message. She was probably just running late, or perhaps she had the wrong day. No worries. She completed her shaman training, hung out her shingle, and opened her practice in our small town.

I answered her “Reflexology” ad and went in for a session. I had never been to reflexology before. But I had seen it on the streets of New Orleans, and on the edge of Chinatown, and I had always wondered about it.

Norma’s office was essentially “Chiropractor 101,” only with the lights turned low and massage music playing. It was on the edge of a busy road, so occasionally our session would be drowned out by the roar of engine brakes.

I’m not sure how old Norma is, but she’s getting up there. I’m 59. She’s svelte, with frosted tips and stylish talk-therapist glasses, and I’m guessing she has me by about ten years.

After booking my appointment, I filled in the necessary “chart,” what with her being a legitimate healer and all. She said in email that she needed it completed before our work could commence.

So I completed the form. I indicated that I had been to massage, psychiatry, Reiki, Feldenkrais, and cranial sacral in search of relief from my general life condition. I checked a lot of boxes: colonics, yoga (kundalini to yin and back again), ayahuaska,

crystal therapy, gong baths.

I didn’t want Norma to think that because I had never been to reflexology, it wasn’t because I hadn’t given self-care a chance.

And it didn’t really matter; anyway, because when I showed up at the appointed hour, she hadn’t read it.

At our appointment she asked me a bunch of annoying questions that I had already thought deeply about and registered accordingly.

What I like to do, when I am being healed, is fall asleep. I like to waft away during massage and I would prefer it if the practitioner du jour would let me taste sleep.

That’s why I wish Norma had studied harder at Shaman School.

She did not ask me to get naked and lie on her bench. Rather, I was to roll up my jeans, and my sleeves, and she was to do her work on both bare skin and flesh beneath clothing.

Fine. She bathed my feet in hot, hot water. Interesting. She glazed my hot feet with Epsom salts and essential oils. She triggered pressure points and delved into massage up to my rolled up knee. It was all terrifically relaxing and wonderful except I was sitting in a chair, unable to fall asleep to receive the wonder of all that she had to offer.

When I did graduate to the bench, Norma banged the door to the microwave closed. That startled me. As did its beeping, when the hot towels were ready.

Of course the heated beanbag eye mask felt magnificent. It always does. My relaxation deepened and I could see sleep on the horizon. Until Norma tripped on a bowl of lotion and essential oils as she moved from working on my scalp back to my toes.

Dammit. Monkey mind started wondering if she hurt herself.

Norma recovered fine. She found her groove with some electric massager thing that she applied to my spine and to the sides of my head. It kept cutting out—which is what I think it is supposed to do. Norma seemed to have a hard time starting it again and again.

I thought her chanting was lovely, albeit interrupted some by the Waste Management truck that came to empty the dumpster outside the window during. And her bell ringing could definitely use work. Occasionally she would strike a long lasting and vital tone that would enter my root chakra and travel to my crown, but mostly she hit tinny beats that never even made the solar plexus.

I don’t want to sound like something out of Trip Advisor, but when she finished she quietly retreated to her waiting room, where she turned on the florescent lights to wait for my return to the living world.

I swung from the table, rolled down my pants and shirt sleeves, put on my hat, my glasses, and my Fitbit. I found my phone, my wallet, and keys. I was disappointed when I put on my socks and found them wet. That was a serious drag, since I was wearing Birkenstocks, climbing into wet socks on a cold night.

Norma had a hard time making change when I tried to pay her. Seems she had forgot her wallet. But we completed our transaction.

She went home with a fistful of dollars. And I went home wondering about Shaman School. The next day, I took me hat off during a meeting, and noticed the brim was filled with Epsom salts.