lay off me, you guys...i was starving...

i had an epic nap on saturday, and i'm not overstating the point to refer to this nap as a game-changer. in fact, i'd be hard pressed to simply refer to this particular incident of day-time sleep as simply a nap. this little three hour jaunt was somewhere between a coma and a revelatory experience. waking up felt like i'd been hit inthe back of the head with a baseball bat by the sandman, who may or may not have been taking the same kind of performance enhancing drugs favored by the likes of barry bonds or mark maguire. all of which is to say that i woke up drenched in sweat, with my comforter in tangled disarray around my legs and feet, sprawled on my back with my mouth wide open, and trying like hell to figure out what was real and what was dream.

i had to lay there for a little while after i woke up, because what i dreamed was so bizarre and strange that i felt compelled to try and pick out what meaning might have been there. i know that sounds weird, because when i tell you what the contents of the dream were, you're really going to think i've finally just gone totally crackers. but something serious and big and looming and lovely and difficult seemed to be buried inside the folds of this dream. i sent a text out to some friends, playing the dream off like a joke. but it was real, it was serious. it was a gamechanger. and sure, it was also just a dream: one of those subconscious brain dumps that happen when the recycle bin in your brain gets too full to see one more four a.m. infomercial for a steamer/rotisserie/fat-reducing/spacesaving piece of shit you just can't live without.

so, here's the dream...

i go to have a mani/pedi, which is something i do in real life about once a quarter. the place i go is really nice, and has kind of an easter feel to it--lots of bamboo, little teak-wood figures, low tables, no chairs, and all the treatment rooms have wall-length transoms over the doors. lots of detail, right? i was blown away at how well decorated this joint was, considering that i also recognized it as a chinese food place i used to frequent in austin. in my dreamy way, i was all excited..."ooo, they turned "snow pea" into a nail place! i wonder if i can still get an egg roll?"... i meet with a receptionist, who looked shockingly like ben stiller's real-life mom, who informed me that the place had gone up on their prices, and i probably would want to look at their menu of services. so, i look at the menu, select my treatments, and am shown to a room.

in the room sits this little skinny dude, who i know as the older brother of kenny powers, from the hbo series "eastbound and down". as an aside: that show is freaking hilarious. i can't stop watching it, and it's only six episodes long. however, i don't immediately recognize that he's that dude. i was mostly just suprised that a skinny white guy was about to do my nails, and the skinny guys that usually do my nails are most frequently vietnamese, or aren't guys, at all. so, he leaves the room to change clothes, which doesn't strike me as odd, at all. and then, i realize that earl and the crab-man from "my name is earl" are in the corner of the room, on a tatami mat, with clip-boards in their hands.

now, i never really watched a whole lot of "my name is earl", but when i did, i thought the show was pretty funny. i think jason lee is hilarious, and have liked him since "mallrats". they come over and start asking me all these questions about my medical history, where i live, etc. i start spilling my information with no problem, at all. i remember thinking, "should i really be telling earl and the crabman all this information? isn't this how your identity gets stolen?" which was followed quickly by the thought that they seemed like nice guys, and i felt very very very safe, for some odd reason. i finished up with earl and the crabman, and they seemed very satisfied with whatever answers i gave them, and they retired back onto their mat, which they had pulled to within about two feet of where i'd been told to sit on the floor.

about this time, the skinny guy who is going to be doing my nails comes back into the room...dressed as a hare krishna. i'm just taking this in stride, y'all. it never even phased me. and he's telling me that we're going to do some yoga poses before he starts working on my feet and hands. so we do some yoga, and earl and the crabman are just hanging out, making notes on their clip-boards, and occasionally giving me corrections on poses. and then, something totally strange and mystical happens.

this skinny guy in his saffron colored robes scootches all the way across the floor, almost into my lap, and i start backing up because i came here to get my toes done, not to be molested by a monk in full drag. all of a sudden, this guy grabs my head very gently, and kisses me behind my right ear...for like fifteen minutes. not making out, not anything overtly sexy or anything. just lays this lovely, warm, intense smooch behind my ear, right on the bony protrustion that i rub when i am anxious or upset. and then, i got the biggest hug i've ever had in my life. i felt like i was being embraced from the top of my head to the bottoms of my feet by this strange man, while earl and the crab man continued their notetaking. periodically, i would struggle or shift and think that we were done with this pose, because seriously...how long can you sit hugging some odd little man in saffron robes while he's kissing you behind your ear, and all you came in for was a mani-pedi and an egg roll? and every time i go to pull away, inside my head i can hear this voice just saying, "rachel...breathe...relax...be here." and i did. and i did. and i was there. it was real, and for the first time in ages, i didn't feel alone or lonely.

at some point, and i'm not sure when, i went from the hug with the monk to my car, which wasn't my real car, and i'm trying to figure out how to read the monk's business card, and trying to figure out if i paid my check, and if really had to pay for the services rendered because i realized that i still didn't have painted nails. and right about the time i was coming back to my house, which wasn't my house, and my dog, who isn't really a dog, and was trying to figure out how to send the monk a text message saying "thank you", i woke myself up.

i honestly didn't know whether to laugh or cry upon waking, and i still don't. all i know is that i had a very strange dream. i think i learned a couple of things, though. give everyone you can a hug, even if you have to ask for permission. we forget the power and profundity of the human touch, and in our loneliest places, those little hugs, pats, kisses, whatever make those moments bearable. and i also learned that G-d comes to you in the strangest of ways, at the strangest of times, in the oddest of garbs to grab you and tell you that you are loved and loved and loved and loved, and it never runs out.

mil besos,
rmg