Rituals Two: Flying

Back before 9/11 my memory is that flying was so easy. Visions of going to the gate to greet people as they arrived (when did that stop?) I remember arriving at the airport 15 minutes before a flight. Security was annoying in that you had to walk through a scanner. Then you had to have a boarding pas to get to the gate but then...what happened? Security happened. They do a good job but the process has become a ritual and in this case it is a somewhat painful one but it does serve, as all good rituals to get me from one place...to another, only in this case those places are not just in my psyche.

The rituals start with packing. All packing is done with a minor consideration of what you need and the major consideration of whether what you need requires a bag that you have to check instead of carrying on. If you are checking a bag you relegate yourself to the dreaded “lost” bag and if you carry on you have to make sure you are in a position to get on the plane in time to stow your bag over head. If not you will become the victim of the dreaded “gate check” and are once again exposed to “lost” luggage and a mental condition known clinically as “Lost Suitcase Syndrome” (LSS).

LSS affects millions of americans each year. It is when you have checked a bag, arrive at your location and the bag is not brought up off the tarmac for a gate checked back or does not come up on the carousel for a checked bag. The first sign of LSS is the stricken look and then you begin the Kuebler Ross stages of denial (perhaps if I wait a little longer and stare mournfully at the chute which spits out the bags mine will arrive). There is also the period where you realize you left you baggage claim tags in the pocket of the seat in front of you on the plane and a frenzied checking of the pockets. After paling and suffering some anguish you move on to anger (I flew 3 thousand miles in a metal tube traveling 600 miles and hour and you idiots lose my bag). This leads to wandering fugue state where you search for your airlines customer service department. This is normally located in the airports equivalent of a dark alley. Not only is it dirty but it is easy to imagine vagrants urinating in the waiting area. It is small. (there is after all no money to be made in finding lost luggage) It is inadequately staffed (there is after all no money to be made in finding lost luggage) It is staffed by a hostile woman (there is after all no money to be made in finding lost luggage) There is a long line of angry, tired, jet lagged people. Eventually you are “helped” by the angry, impatient woman who rolls her eyes at your stupditiy for entrusting a bag to them, your stupidity for not having your claim tags, your stupidity for flying to see you in-laws and finaly is incredulous regarding your hostility resulting in a “not my problem” attitude that can fling the unprepared into homicidal rage. These clerks utter such sage counsel as, “Idon’t have your bag sir.” “I didn’t lose your bag sir.” “I cannot help you if you are going to scream at me sir.” these well trained clerks have been known in times of crisis to close their station and go to lunch. The bottom line is that they do not give a shit. If they were any good at their job they would be doing something for the airline where it makes money. They will then roll their eyes when you describe your bag as “black...about this big (holding hands pathetically to indicate size) and on wheels.” She knows this desribes approximately 94.7% of all bags. Then...they take your contact information and get back to you. At some unspecified date in the future, sometimes when you return from your trip the bag will be left on your doorstep by an anonymous bag farie.

In order to avoud this we pack lightly and jealously keep our bags under our control. This requires that after you pack you get on line and log in and print your boarding pass and check in. This is easy if you are a regular flyer of the airline and have a frequent flyer number or if you kept your itinerary from a month before and can locate your itinerary number. If not, forget about. You can check in the next day when you arrive at the airport and not have enough room to place your bag in an overhead bin and have to.... gate check it.

Then you get to go to the airport. It used to be there were options like short term (close to the airport), intermediate term (slightly further away) and long term (way the hell away). these concessions used to be operated by the airport themselves. Now if yo are going to be gone for more then 8 hours you go to a commercial long term lot somewhere within the same 100 miles as the airport. You pull through several gates, pass on valet service, contemplate covered parking and then go as cheap as possible and park on the surface lot. Scramble out of your car. Forget you charger for your cell phone or blackberry, consider all the places you have to lose your cars claim ticket and get your bags and either wait patiently in the cold for your shuttle bus or trek to their office for pick up. this is where the cattle process starts.

You board a shuttle “bus” which is really a carry all with bad seating and no shocks. The driver will either ignore you or try and carry your bags on to the bus. You get on, you wait till they are satisfied theyhave everyone, you briefly resent the people standing in the warmed valet area who are picked up last and dropped off first and you head for the terminal. You are always (violating numerous laws of probability and physics) the last one dropped off. Then..do you tip this person? If they do not help with your bags what have they done? You watch some people do it. You guiltily give the guy a buck.
if yur checking a bag you go tocurb check in. terminal check in must be avoided at all costs. These guys (TWA used to call them “sky caps”) are normally the most motivated people in the process and normally are the most competent and pleasant people at the airport. Smile at them. Tip them generously so as not to forget to put your bag on the converyor. These are the last competent people you will see in this process.

if you are not checking a bag you go into the terminal. Try and check in at a kiosk. You will find that there are lines of people in front of the kioks and that a minimus of 25% of them (I think this is a Federally mandated number) are out of order. make sure you have your major credit card so they can “find you”. Swipe it...in theory it immediatly accesses your itinerary and allows you the option to check your bag, “no” and thenprints a boarding pass. This is ofc ourse if you did not print it out the night before on line. When you print out at airport you will see an H on your pass indicating that you are in the 8th boarding group. You curse.

Next it off to the TSA line. The cattle process continues with TSA employees (handlers) barking instructions and gesticulating you into various ques. Curse the first class passengers (who you already cursed at the valet position in the car park) as they are in their own shorter line (presumably getting back rubs and lahte grande’s from pleasant good looking TSA staff) and you wander when terrorism became something the rich should be more insulated and less inconvenienced by. as you are getting in line you are asked for boarding pass and ID (picture ID drivers license or Passport) and if you do not have one you then have to make a trip to the TSA office (somewhere 7 miles from where you are at) and fill out forms, explain yourself and get cavity searched before you can board. If you have ID and boardingpass you are invited into a Disney Space Mountain set of switchback lanes which do not allow you to see the end. You also have to hear various TSA announcements and you become homicidal as you see the same uncomfortable, unhappy, tense people as you reverse back and forth towards your goal of security check in.

There are ALWAYS idiots in this line. It cannot be helped. The mentally feeble are still allowed to fly. They have never flownbefore, they have not heard the TSA people screeching at them, they have not listened to the recorded announcments indoctrinating all of us like good Maoists. They are... inevitably... in front of you. They have liquids in their carry on bags which do not comply with the new policy and are not under 3 ounces and not in a clear one quart bag. They are asking for a bag, arguing that their lunch bag is adequate, aguing that their toothpaste is not dangerous. The TSA should taser these people in prelude to looting their luggage, shooting them and leaving their bodies in dumspters but instead they yell at them and we wait. Boy do we wait.

They tell you to arrive two hours early. That is good advice because even though an hour should always be enough time there is an anxiety in waiting in that line which takes years off your life if you are in ANY jeopardy of missing your flight. I reccomend Paxil but consider getting a prescription for any anti anxiety drug. You will need to do this a few weeks before you fly because it needs to build up in your system. Do it but get there two hours early anyway because airports are cool comfortable places to hang out.

You while your way through the line and as you apprach the actual checkpoint anxiety once agin rushes at you. Are you carrying drugs? Did someone slip them into your bag? What do you have in which pockets, why did you wear your boots (because you know you have to tremove your shoes) andoh my God I have a lap top to remove from my bag. You approach the tables covered with bus tubbs and start to disrobe and unpack. Lap top layed flat in tub with nothing on top of it, shoes the same way, coat, sweatchirt and hoody...all off and in a tub, and your carry on which you have been schlepping like a mule for that last mile in that line...all on the table...onto the conveyor belt and through the x-ray. You then still need your boarding pass...again but this time without your license and you try and smile as you walk through, hope you dont beep and oh shit, you forgot about your big Loan Star belt buckle and you have to go back through, put it ina tub and walk back through hoping you pants do not fall down and that you are not “singled out” for “special screening.”

You then if you pass muster move to the far side of the x-ray machine, reclaim your belongings, reassemble your life and re dress and move on. You find your gate. You marvel at the fact that there are 4 places to get food and drink while you wait and they all suck. You settle on a Starbucks and because you were good you have 45 minutes to wait. Your gate area is of course full because they do not have enough seats for everyone who is getting on a plane in that gate area. You finally find a place across the concourse and you set yourself into a chair designed by some sadistic German. Somewhere it is writteninto Federal law that airports may not have comfortable seating. there is als a bar between every chair so that people cannot move into a prone position.

You have time to kill so you fire up the laptop. There are no outlets at airports. Sure you can luck into one by sitting on the floor behind a gate agen but do not count on it. Next you get to see that this is one of those enlightened airports that does not have any internet OR is a t-mobile “hot spot.” Somewhere along the line your city planners have forgotten that business travelers and business CFO’s will not do business here because the idiots have decided that free internet was too much. So you buy a newspaper and try and relax. You are about toget in a metal tube which for some reason will be suspended several thousand feet above the ground...relax.

Boarding time comes. You curse the rich valet people again as they board first in a slow carfree way only hobbled by he dreaded “people needing extra assistance and families with small children.” You wait as people line up. We will not even visit on the Southwest Airlines cattle call which should be the subject of numerous scholarly articles and sociological studies but for a quick idea please read the book “Lord of the Flies.” So you wait for them to call you boarding group and then you line up, hand them your boarding pass and wait some more for the people ahead of you to find their seats and take up all available overhead room. Anxiety sets in again as you know there is no room for your bag.

You go down the jetway seeing whether you are flying on a puddle jumper (small jet suitable only for maximum discomfort and fiery crashes) or a big boy plane (huge outdated behemoths that still have ashtrays soddered shut from when they disallowed smoking on planes 120 years ago suitable only for maximum discomfort and fiery crashes. You step onto the plane and are greeted by the steward or stewaress (there are no hot stewardesses..believe it, get over it) and you wait seeing you are in seat 24E. You wade through first class, they already have their cocktails and are not making eye contact with anyone as we trudge through back to our cabin (think trail of tears). Their seats are massive in first class accomodating their girth with room to spare. Their drinks are served in real glasses. They offered refills. You suspect that good looking men and woman are perfomring sexual favors for them when the curtains are closed between classes and that it is just a dirty little secret of first class.

On this rare occasion you find room for your overhead bag (say three hail Marys and one rosarie). You then stand behind the man with the bag that is too big for the space trying to shove it in as he sweats and curses until finally he is relieved of the bag, over his objection by a steely eyed stewardess who admonishes him that he brought to big of a bag on the plane and why didnt her check it in one of the ubiquitous “if your bag is larger then this you must check it” oblivious to the fact that no one has EVER checked to see if there bag was to big because the space provided in those checkrs is the size of a toaster oven. As the bag is taken from the desperate pleading man to be “gate checked” and never seen again there is always an implied possibilityof violence if you do not surrender the bag quickly and quietly.

You find you seat finally and see that you are...of course in the middle seat. To the window seat is a fat smelly man and on the aisle there is a fat smelly women. Both appear to have been ushered here from a homeless shelter by the airline for the express purpose of making you uncomfortable physically and mentally. One of them starts to talk to you before you can bury your face in a news paper or book. You briefly contemplete pretending to be deaf and then are engaged in halting, painful and inane conversation. It is then...and only then that you realize that you have to go to the bathroom.
You sit inyour cramped seat and hear a speech regarding safety belts and flotation devices “in the unlikely case of a water landing” for your trip from St. Louis to Minneapolis. Minnesota is of course the land of 10,000 lakes. You are admonished to turn off your cell phone as the door to the plane closes then you wait....the plane pulls back from the gate....and you wait....the plane lines up for take off...and you wait...then you finally take off noticing that the homeless woman has stopped talking and is now puking noisily. You did not notice immediatly because you have now realized that you have two children with their mother, aged 6 months and 5 directly behind you. The 6 month old has an ear infection and has just started a crying jag which will not stop until we land or she passes out. The 5 year old is busy kicking and punching your seat as his mother in a great deal of stress admonishes him to “just behave Loenard.” You contemplate suicide.

At some point you are allowed to use lap top of iPod and can slip headphones on. They offer you a 2 1/2 oz tumbler of soda. You can buy a warm beer for 6 bucks. The drink has no ice and is flat. You still need to pee. The woman has stopped vomiting. It smells even after the bag is taken away somewhat reluctantly by the the stewardess. You try and read, work on your laptop or do a soduku puzzle. You spend 8 seconds flipping through the airline magazine. You might wish you had some porn on your laptop. Sometime the pilot makes inane announcements about arrival time and gate, apologizes that you are behind schedule and points out that if you squint out the right side of the airline you can see the worlds larges ball of twine.

You develop a head ache from the pressurization in the plane, from your anxiety and lack of sleep or more likely from that brain tumor that you know your lazy doctor has not found yet. You idly hope in your cramped middle seat needing to pee that something in your head might suddenly pop and other then a little blood coming from your ears you will die quickly and neatly. You do not die. You question the existence of God as the fat man starts to snore so loudly that he is drowning out your iTunes and the screaming child. You silently wish ill on his children. You realize your blood sugar levels must be plummeting and curse the bag of stale “snack crackers” you refused an hour ago. You hope that you black out.

The plane starts to descend. You assume that it is losing power and you are about die in a spectacular crash. They announce the “final descent to our arrival destination” and you wander why they are talking that about a thick mountained forrest and wonder about the sadistic sense of humor the stewardess has. You are told to turn off all your electronic devices and return your seat and tray table to their upright and locked position. You descend rapidly. The ground shoots up at you. You wonder f the pilot has ever done this before. You see the airstrip...you bounce hard on the runway loosening some fillings. You slow and are pulle forward in your seat. You taxi to the gate, You wait for the 144 people in the seats ahead of you to slowly claim their belongings, reassemble their lives and proceed out of the plane. As you gather your own and head out you realize the people in First Class are already teeing off somewhere and you curse them again...and their children. You mouth is dry and your skin is cracked from the dry air in the plane. Your angry and tired. Welsome to your business or vacation desitnation.

You consider driving home for the return trip. You fail to think positively about any of these rituals bringing you so far, so fast and so safe. You wonder about the bag retrieval and the rent a car and your hotel reservation and you just wish you were home. You still need to pee.

Rituals One

This weekend the St. louis Diner Review traveled to Hot Springs Arkansas for some golf, drinking and handicapping. Although all those activities went well I found myself on Saturday morning sitting in a big old ceramic tub at the Buckstaff (pictured above). The water coming from the 47 protected hot springs located along the lower slopes of Hot Springs Mountain maintains an average 143° at their source at an average flow rate of 850,000 gallons per day. sitting there I began to consider...rituals. This Diner likes his rituals...in an almost pathological and certainly mentally unhealthy way...and bathing at “The Spa” is a ritual among rituals. I am certain it seems like I am always defining things but good rituals...define themselves. The Spas at Hot Springs are all run by the Park Service who describes them...thusly:

“The Buckstaff Bath House still offers a traditional style treatment with its staff of highly trained and dedicated personnel. Offering you the privacy of individual tubs, with an all men's department on the first floor and the 2nd floor being dedicated to the ladies. To bathe at the Buckstaff, you need only present yourself during the admission times (no reservations or appointments accepted). All supplies and linen are provided to cover your self Roman style between your bathing stations (bathing suits optional). Each department has locking lockers and small valuables may be deposited at the front desk in private lock boxes. Some age and health restrictions may apply, your inquiry welcome.

Operating under regulations of the U.S. Department of Interior, National Park Service, the Buckstaff offers traditional Thermal Mineral Baths and Swedish style massages. Our services include a 20 minute tub bath at a maximum temperature of 100°, Hot Packs for a maximum of 20 minutes, Sitz Bath for 10 minutes, Vapor Cabinet (steam cabinet) for a maximum of 2 minutes with the heads in cabinet or 5 minutes in the heads out cabinet, finishing it off with a 2 minute maximum rinse in the needle shower. Each tub is equipped with its own whirlpool and may be used while in the tub bath. You may then top the whole experience off with a full body Swedish style massage making your visit to the Buckstaff the most enjoyable and refreshing part of your stay in Hot Springs National Park Arkansas. Please allow approximately 1½ hours for the entire process and longer during peak periods.”

This description does not do the ritual justice. You walk into that beautiful building above after parking somewhere in downtown Hot Springs (boyhood home of Bill Clinton) which is a truly charming place even on a rainy January day. There has been very little development downtown and it sits in a narrow (often flooded) ravine of the Quachita (waw-shee-taw) mountains and many of the buildings back up to bluffs blown out of the mountain. It is a dying downtown but charming and a little eclectic and is dominated by the two large hotel spas, The Arlington and The Majestic which have been there since... forever and certainly since there was still legal gambling in Hot Springs. I arrived with three gambling compatriots deciding to take a mental health break and refusing to golf in the rain with the rest of the tribe. You enter a small lobby and there is a que for the reception desk where they ask you what services you want. The “classic” along with a loofa rub clocks in at about $51.00. At the desk they take all your valuables and put them in a safe deposit box and give you a key on a band you can wrap around your wrist or ankle. They also hand you a grocery store plastic shopping bag with a loofa mitt in it. Once you pay if you are a man they usher you to one side or the other depending on the crowd. Both sides are a mirror image to one another. The woman ride in an old fashion steel grated elevator to pleasures above that I can only guess at.

Once you enter a greeter (in this case a Willie Nelson look alike...circa “Red Headed Stranger”) acknowledges you and marches you to a small screened in stall with a several lockers and picks one for you and slips another key over your wrist. He also hands you a cheap (but very clean) bed sheet telling you to strip, including your glasses, put everything in the locker, lock it and then let him know. After following orders you come out (in your own poor effort to wear the sheet toga style (ala Blutarsky) and he leads you to a large tiled room with much hissing and spitting of pipes. You sit on a wooden chair and he puts your name on a hook. You absently hold your gorcery bag with loofa mitt wondering whether anyone will come along and thinking how absurd you look sitting in this large room, naked but for a sheet (which you are still trying to arrange to look cool) waiting....

From here, eventually an attendant, in my case James, comes and greets you and tells you to follow him. He does not look behind to see if you are complying having no question of his authority. You walk past a long line of chaise lounges to a large stall about the size of a handicapped commode, but instead of a toilet there is a six foot ceramic tub...very deep. You stand there for a moment as James fiddles with the hot and cold water which all come out of a huge spigot. In the tub there is a large steel thermometer and what looks to be a small outboard engine. That is the whirlpool unit. James keeps the water running as he adjusts the temperature and takes a dixie specimen cup filling it with the mineral water (very hot) and saying...drink it all. And when you drink the warm water he refills it, hands it to you and says...again. You comply.
He then peels off your sheet, briefly examines your sad middle aged body (James by the way is a black man of indeterminate age between 40 and 68) and then he directs you to a stool to stop up into the tub and offers a supporting arm guiding you into the tub. You sink and the water feels hot but not too hot. I notice that the thermometer says 105. James hands me another cup of water which I obligingly down and then he makes sure to tell me how to settle into the tub and stretch out. James apparently is used to dealing with idiots like me. He takes the loofa and allows me to use it as a head rest and grunts approvingly at his handiwork and my ability to follow simple instructions.

You sit in the tub with your back to the entrance of the stall and so have no distractions but a clock about 15 feet up on the wall and the sound of other customers behind you. My ADD does not start to kick in till about 10 minutes when I start to rearrange myself out of pure boredom stretching...wondering whether the whirlpool thing will malfunction and electrocute me...pressing my feet against the jet out of the whirlpool and getting a free foot massage. And then I start to really sweat. Even though 105 is not hot....sitting there...hot water cooking inside you...you start to remove various parts of your body from the soup. You sit up straighter....you hang your arms over the top. You experiment with draping your legs over the edge...you sweat like a pig. Almost all good rituals have some quality suffering involved. (my opinion).

A few words about “the waters”. The water pours out of the mountain very hot. it has a huge mineral content and throughout the bath house everywhere the water has run for years results in calcification and it reminds me of Meramec Caverns or Onendaga Cave’s limestone formations. Anyway, the waters are thought to have healing and restorative powers both internally and externally. FDR swore by the place and throughout his life would come to the spas in hot Springs for relief from the polio he was afflicted with. It taste good and is bottled and sold by at least one company nation wide as Mountain Valley Water. It does not feel different on my skin but once again just knowing other people think it’s special...helps make it magical for me.

Eventually James comes back and he is ready for business. He asks if I hurt anywhere and I say, “No, I actually feel pretty goo”, but before I can finish he is nodding knowingly and saying my lower back seems really stiff and so he bends me forward a little bit stretching me out. Then he begins using the loofa mitt and begins a methodical scrubbing of my body making sure he misses you private parts but firmly scrubbing most of your flesh. I cannot lie, having this man rub my flesh feels good. Which brings us to another point. There is nothing sexual about this experience but it is not for the homophobic. There are a lot of naked men (most of us in various disrepair with a large range of obesity and sagging flesh) walking around and there are at least two instances where men are...rubbing on you.

Anyway...you forget about the sweating. James then helps you out of the deep tub and takes you over to a shower stall with water coming out at knee level into a basin with what appear to be 2X4 as a seat. James scrubs it in front of me with comet as I imagine awkwardly standing there and James works on my feet I guess. He then grabs me, turns me around and tells me “sit down just like you were getting onto your car.” I comply and sit on the bench as James explains that the sitzbath really works on that lower back pain and hemorrhoids (how does he know about those?) and he explains it helps “everything below the waist.” I shift there with hot water coursing off my lower back and ass crack. I can only imagine how ludicrous I look to the other man passing by trying not to stare. Once again I gotta tell you...it feels good.

James give the mineral water a long time to let it do his work and then gets me and helps me up and walks me to a steam closet. This steam closet is slightly larger then my close closet at home and it does not seal tight. For steam it has steaming hot minderal water pouring onto the floor under the bench you sit on which then....steams up. It has been doing it for years and there is a lot of calcification. At some of the old baths they used to have the classic steam closet which you sat in with your head out of the box and they closed it around you. So retro. James assures me that he will be back in two minutes....and then he leaves...and leaves me there for 5 minutes. It is not that hot but...once again you sweat and you keep sweating...It feels slightly dirty in there and looks dirty but when you rub your hands you realize it is not dirt...just more calcificiation from all the minerals. Thankfully before I go into a panic attack he comes back.

He then walks me over to a sink and takes another specimen cup, this time filling it with cold water which I guzzle confidently and then hands me another one...and then another one saying “again.” he then leads me to a chaise lounge where I lay on my coveted sheet. He walks over with two HOT towels and has me lean up and then he pack them under my back and leans me back down slowly...very hot. He then wraps me in my sheet and proceeds to drape a cool towel around my head like a hood. The hot/cold like good asian food is enticing and I laid there for quite a while. Sweating...a lot...back with this hot towel as a lumbar support staring at the same clock...sweating and wrapped like a mummy but not wanting to stick an arm or a leg out of my sweat casing because then James and everyone else who might look would see what a pussy I am...sweating.

James comes back and I assume he is enjoying the suffering he is imposing and knowing that he is taking care of me. He gets me up, removes the towels and takes me to another stall. This stall is filled with a contraption known as “the needle shower” which hits you with 360 degree pinpoint jest of water in about 5 rings circling your body while a gallon a second dumps on your head. The CIA would call it water boarding but it feels like a nice controlled drowning. Somewhere outside the stall James is manipulating water temperature in what I assume is a trained and therapeutic way. First warm...then hot...then cool. I spin making sure it hits me everywhere and then after two minutes I am done. James towels me off mainly concerned with drying my face. James tells me what a pleasure it was to be able to help me and makes sure I know his name so I can tell them at the desk what his tip is and he says he would look forward to seeing me again. I have the feeling that he means it and that there is a reasonable chance he would remember my name.

He leads me to the cool down room, kind of a waiting room with chaise lounges and I lay...wrapped in my sheet and wait. There is a gentlemen laying there with me in his sheet with the Mark McGuire fu manchu. We say nothing. Very little is spoken between the patrons here. Once again my ADD kicks in...huge...very tired of being here. Bath and everything with it is great but I remember that I don’t really even like massages and that I should have just gotten the bath and moved on. They take the guy waiting and two of my compatriots are brought in to wait also and it becomes apparent that there is only one masseuse and we wait and break the silence and chat a little. These guys are 23 and 24 years old and they are in awe of the process and it does feel great and relaxing and it is cool and I like it more thinking about the experience through their eyes.

Finally Taylor calls “BECKER”, and I am up for the swedish massage. Taylor is pleasantly gay in that southern gay way that is so inoffensive to me. He asks where I am from and what I do and we have an excellent conversation about St. Charles and Soulard and practicing law. he works on my back, comments on the dryness of my skin and at my request (because we are running late) hurries me through the process so he can get to the other boys. Massages generally are great but for me they are rarely life changing. This one is no different. It is a quiet finishing ritual that seals the deal.

I go back to my changing space, my body slightly greasy. I get dressed and head out to the waiting area...get my belongings and make my tips and are on my way. This ritual like them all takes you through a process and this process is one aimed at cleansing and renewal. All good rituals have a lot of details, a lot of subdelties and take you from point A to point B. I do not kid myself about the healing power of the water or the massage or anything else but I do feel better. And I like it.