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This article appeared in Life Styles section of the Oak Bay News
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So, for all you males out there who are too busy doing manly stuff, like running the country, or fighting NHL withdrawal, let me take you through the basics. I visited the Ocean Palm Spa in the newly opened Sidney Cannery, but you can try this anywhere. Just don’t try it at home, guys. Well, not until you’re a lot better at it.
The first thing you notice on walking through the door is the smell. The air has an aroma that is one part The Bay perfume counter, one part tropical fruit, and one part soap. The staff are all smartly dressed, polished, glossy even. I quickly realized I’d done the right thing by showering after hauling that truckload to the dump earlier.
Owner Lesley Langfield has been in the aesthetic business for three decades, much of it on Vancouver Island, where she is widely known. After welcoming my wife and me (you didn’t think I’d do this on my own, now did you?) we headed for the change rooms. The thing you have to realize, guys, is that a lot of this spa business involves skin, and for the staff to work their magic, you have to get naked - not buff naked, but naked under a robe. It’s worth mentioning the robe is a lot more luxurious than anything the Canadian Health Service offers when you sit around waiting for a CAT-scan. No, my robe was top of the line, and I had thoughts, as I sashayed out to start my spa experience, that I should drop our friend Ujal Dusandj a note, mentioning where some of that new health care money could be well spent. No more bare butts in hospital corridors, for a start.
It was an enriching experience, until Natalie mentioned that if I came in once a month I’d see such a difference in my feet. OK, so, maybe they were looking a little rough where the mountain boots chaff them. But having warm oil rubbed in and the toes massaged, reminded me of the last time anyone had done that to me - grandma playing “five little piggies”.
Pedicures, it turns out, are a social event. My wife was in the next chair, enjoying similar treatment, although in deference to being a guy, I was getting the ‘Sport Pedicure’, which sounded pretty macho, while she was having a full scrub, manicure and sea aroma foot mask. Lesley appeared and asked how we were doing. I admitted I couldn’t understand why I’d never tried this pedicure game before.
“For the guys, the thing is just to get them in here the first time,” Lesley said. I go along with that. In fact, by the time Natalie had finished my feet, and the chair had finished my spine, I was in such a euphoric state I felt I’d gone the third degree with Mata Hari in the Kama Sutra.
But more was to follow. Loretta took over from Natalie, and what happened next can only be described as the closest thing to Zen and the Art of Body Maintenance as can be reached on this planet. Laying face up on a massage table, warm black cobbles were laid up and down my central meridian. (Don’t you just love having a central meridian?) Then aromatic oil, scented with peppermint and tropical night, was applied. Finally, hot stones were run up and down my body in ways that can barely be described, without making you break out in a sweat too.
After what seemed an age, I was flipped over like some half-cooked pancake, and the same process repeated on my back, with radiant stones simmering in pools of heat along my spine. Loretta changed the massaging rocks often, the new ones sizzling as they slid over my glowing skin. Then came the surprise … cold rocks that sent shocks through me. Then cold and hot together. Yin and yang. Light and dark. Then it was over.
Back in the recovery ward (they call it the Quiet Room), I returned to normal slowly, descending like a soap bubble from somewhere far away, drifting down through layers of cloud towards earth, until finally popping back into reality. “How do you feel?” My wife asked.
“When can we do this again?” I replied.
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