The Outdoor Massage Phenomenon Is a Rare Relief—Jackhammers Notwithstanding - Vanity Fair

[massage]

One of the upsides, I guess, of suffering “coronasomnia” (a delightful side effect of our modern plague) is that I rarely get enough sleep to entertain the anxiety dreams that have become a common feature of the moment. Women, in particular, are reporting a surge of horrifying night visions, an explosion of tsunamis, imprisonments, and swarms of flying insects. The closest I’ve come to a textbook nightmare was in the early days of the outbreak. I dreamed I was at a party held in a sprawling, loft-like bathhouse, where I lingered with hundreds of guests in a pool of warm water, our bodies languid and melting into one another. It was intensely, if not erotically, pleasurable—a mom sex dream—until I realized with a jolt of horror that we were in the middle of a pandemic, and none of us was wearing a mask.

All these months later, I don’t have it in me to even subconsciously fantasize about being touched by anybody other than a member of my immediate family. I protect and disinfect, and shudder every time somebody on the street drifts too close. Hyper-vigilant and overstimulated, my shoulders hitched up to my ears, the rest of my body is brittle as a wooden clothespin. Watching Evan Rachel Wood’s affection-starved character winch with distress when a massage therapist moved to lay a hand on her in the new Miranda July film Kajillionaire was moviegoing at its most relatable.

When I heard about massages going al fresco, I was dubious. Ever since the start of this waking nightmare, I’ve been more partial to the outdoors than outdoor gimmicks. Outdoor dining seems like tempting fate, a Petri dish in the streets; and the one outdoor yoga class I attempted, held in a local playground, was interrupted by the balls that kept escaping the surrounding pickup basketball games and rolling across our mats. Then again, eating gnocchi and downward dogging are activities you can do at home. The alternative to outdoor massage is…no massage at all.

From coast to coast, massage therapists who need to work around COVID-era fears and restrictions are moving their tables out of the treatment rooms and into the great wide open. Or, in the case of Brooklyn-based massage therapist Sara Clark, into a cozy portion of the garden that she shares with her upstairs neighbors. “The good thing is it’s fairly quiet, and the neighbors are rarely around,” says Clark, who is all the rage on the Park Slope Parents’ listserve. Yes, there are occasional hammering sounds from nearby Barclays Center, but clients tend to tune them out and give in to her ministrations. “If it gets loud, I check in and they say it’s like white noise,” she says. “People are really needing to be touched.” Bodywork sessions are on offer at Equinox’s outdoor fitness site, which recently popped up in Los Angeles’s Century City Mall, and the newly reopened Golden Door spa in San Marcos, California, has installed canopy structures with flowy orange curtains that invoke the work of Christo and Jean-Claude. Visitors can sign up for Starlight Massages—al fresco treatments beneath oak trees strung up with lights, or alongside candle-stuffed lanterns and waterfall sounds.

“Now it’s all anybody wants,” says Liz Tortolani of outdoor massages, even though she has always offered them at CityWell, her Brooklyn Valhalla of steam rooms and outdoor hot tubs and saunas. Tortolani closed for four months at the outset of COVID, then shifted to private outdoor services when she reopened in July. “We’re completely booked,” she said when I asked about an appointment. “I'll try to squeeze you in.”

I missed having my scalp scratched during the shampooing portion of haircuts, or taking my daughter for pedicures, which everyone knows are an excuse to pay a stranger to rub peppermint balm into your heels. Perhaps it would do me some good to take a break from overseeing two homeschooling pods and yield to the hands of a professional.

The night before my hard-won appointment at Tortolani’s bathhouse, I received a pre-intake form that was more elaborate than most paperwork in doctors' waiting rooms. Did I have sinus problems? Athlete's foot? Lymphedema? No, no, no. Just the coronasomnia. Then came the legalese, and I signed away my right to complain in the unlikely case of COVID-exposure. At arrival, I submitted to a sidewalk temperature check before being allowed inside to change into flip flops (sanitized) and bathrobe (unthinkably fluffy), delivered a jasmine tea (contact-free, thanks to a handy wooden serving board), and led out back to the private garden. Behind a trio of sauna structures awaited my table, housed in a pergola made of cedar and gauzy white curtains.

Left alone to undress, I looked up and saw the back of my next-door neighbor’s building, and the construction site whose drilling sounds drive me crazy all day long. The forecast called for rain and the sky was gray. No way was this going to be relaxing.

When Tortolani (masked) first touched me (also masked), I flinched. My body was not ready. But she pressed on, her hands sliding and kneading and pulling and stretching. I eased into the rhythm, and my mind filled with daydreams, a series of circle-of-lifeish thoughts that made me wonder what nonsense might come up if I ever tried ayahuasca. During a hot-stone magic trick: I am a baby who is being doted on by her mother. During a washcloth moment: I am a 90-year-old being lovingly rubbed down in the tub. Tortolani shook the tension out of my arm and crimped it in half, finally positioning the folded limb over my head. My body is an origami crane.

Tortolani had me flip onto my back and slid her hand between my body and the table, her fingers immediately landing on a nasty knot. My body was a treasure map and she was a pirate master.

It started to drizzle. She kept going, pulling a sheet over me so that only one of us had to withstand the rain. The birdsong grew louder and more layered. I was tuning into a different frequency.

When it was over, I felt ticklish and floaty, confused. I came home and tried to get my daughter to put away her dirty clothes, but I couldn’t remember the word for socks. That night, sick after watching the first presidential debate, I tucked myself into bed, prepared for a dark and twisted installment of coronasomnia. Instead I woke up the next morning, after six hours of uninterrupted slumber, to an email that Tortolani had sent the night before. “I hope you sleep well.”

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