Scrub Away the Old Skin...

..and be someone new.
On Monday my yoga teacher kept talking about shedding the old, the ill-fitting, the ideas, identities, clothes and self-perceptions that are just outdated. It is true! So today, to make that resolution real, I treated myself to a soak at Beverly Hot Springs in Korea Town. Because of my time in Japan I am in love with public baths, o-furos, and anything that involves soaking in hot baths until you are dizzy from heat and sensual pleasure. So after cleaning for three hours I went!
It is the only real hot spring in Los Angeles, nestled on Oxford Street. It is dark, with flickering candles and fake fires and huge, slightly tacky Oriental vases. The rules are strict, verging on fascist, but does that matter?
You strip down, sit on a tiny stone stool, scrub your body clean and pour water over your head, and then slip into a mineral pool that bubbles up from a mile beneath L.A. (Ok, maybe I am exaggerating a little here...). There is a little Buddhist garden in the corner, filled with an old stone lantern, a Buddha, big ferns and a shaft of light that must go up to the street, but makes you feel like you really have crawled into a secret, subterranean wonderland. I don't know what is in the water, but it makes your skin silky, slippery and soft. You just want to touch yourself! When I was so dizzy I thought I was going to pass out a rail-thin Korean grandmother in a black speedo called me into the back room for a body scrub. I had signed up for a scrub that promised to remove all old dead skin with a scrub that would leave you feeling red and fresh and soft as a newborn. As she led me to the back room she touched my shoulder and then made a Korean grunting sound that sounded like, "Wow! You do need a body scrub! Your body feels like old dirty leather!) I smiled, a smile that said, "Yes. Please help me." I crawled onto my table under an old tile ceiling that dripped cold drips like an ancient cave at moments when I thought I couldn't stand the heat anymore. She covered my body in steaming hot towels--so hot I think they came from a vat of boiling water. She would hold them up for a minute to let a little heat escape, then place them on me. Then she went to work--scrubbing away with something abrasive and almost painful. I imagined years of dead skin peeling off and washing away, hatching the new ME of 2009. She scrubbed and scrubbed and rubbed and massaged me and coated me with scents of almond and cucumber and kept rewrapping me in towels, then dousing me with buckets of the hottest water I had ever been under. It almost hurt. But it felt SOOOOO good. I loved her. She moved in a cloud of garlic and kimchee, that clashed with the spa scents--but I didn't care. Down the room I saw other naked white women being pummeled and scrubbed by other old Korean women in what looked like black underwear--panties and conservative bras. I don't know if they really speak English, but they pretend to only know the names of the treatment you have chosen, your name, and "Relax." But that is nice. When I rose from the table I felt like a new woman. I am getting my strength back. My old skin is gone and I am ready to move forward.
I finished off my morning with a giant biminbop combination at the Tofu House on Wilshire Blvd, where a savvy Korean businesswoman has created a special stew that she ships all over the world in giant vats--from Tokyo to LA to Seoul. I gobbled down kimchee and eggs and pickled veggies and tofu stew and rice from stone bowls. I feel good!