Anchovy Drunk

MSP Concourse F. A hard week. Twenty minutes that fixed something I didn’t know was broken.

Malu: peace, calm, shelter, protection.

I did not know that when I walked in. I just knew I needed to sit down somewhere that wasn’t a gate chair or a bar stool.

Writing to you from the Minneapolis airport, road warrior style, after one of the hardest work weeks I can remember in a long time. And so happy to be sharing this.

Oh oasis. Oh, surprise paradise.

I used to know the airport lounge on every layover. I knew the layouts, the food and alcohol offers, and which wines were free vs. premium, which meant a few bucks. I knew how to make a two-hour delay disappear into vats and vats of red wine, glass after glass (the free kind), the endless refill, the nod across the bar that meant yes, another, or better yet, the ones where I could fill my own glass, to the very top of the rim, whispering to myself that it counted as only one glass. Every trip. Every “I deserve this.” Vats. Vats.

I find myself at that Minneapolis airport lounge today, which I remember well. Sober since November 2024 and damn happy about it. But sitting there watching isn’t fun anymore. It’s just boring. The whole performance looks exactly like what it always was, and I just never had the distance to see it. The people sandwiched in around me filling and refilling their glasses as they numb out, working on their laptops, watching inane TV shows, or mindlessly scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. So I finished my free cheese and crackers accompanied by a Pellegrino with a lime, tucked a banana and a Rice Krispies treat in my bag for the plane, and threw myself out the door to find people, places, and stories. Much more interesting.

And I found this.

The Chiroport Massage Lounge at MSP Concourse F, tucked in amidst Wendy’s and Jimmy John’s and all assaults on one’s nostrils that I beg the gods to not transport onto my tin can plane home. Indulge here please, dear airport village. Consume, enjoy and drop in the trash. A fairy haven. An oasis I did not expect.

Malu welcomed me immediately for a twenty minute chair massage. I am no stranger to such indulgences and have often needed therapy for life stress and a lot of working out. Did I mention aging.

After the usual questions I looked deep into her eyes. Like I do with all therapists I have met over the years. You get good at spotting the unicorns. The ones who are both receivers and transmitters and know how to tune in to your body. Your ligaments. Your energies. And your blocks, knots, and deeply stored challenges, worries, and anxiety hibernating in there. I looked deep and hoped and prayed she would be one of those. And I said to her: “Please make it better.”

And she did.

She asked if she could unzip my jumpsuit to really get into my back. Of course I said yes. She then reached into my armpits and released old work stress that had been sitting there, tired and uncollected, maybe for years. Thirty years of massages, and no one had ever thought to look there. She looked. She found everything.

I don’t fully understand all the vagus nerve content that floods my social media algorithms nowadays, but honey, when she sputtered mine back to life like a rusty old lawnmower that’s been sitting rusting in the garage, the life force I felt flowing had no words. Just trust me.

And it got better.

Long leans on my back, slow and easing everything back to how it was meant to be. And as things relaxed, the ever-sought pop pop pop of back areas I have no names for, releasing, signaling that something is finally letting go.

And yes. This was twenty minutes.

When I stood up I was several inches taller. My face arranged in what my husband would recognize as “anchovy drunk,” which is what our cat looks like after the good fish pate. I needed a moment. Then remembered to zip before hugging her.

She took this photo of me in the chair, Jimmy John’s glowing behind me. A perfect portrait of contrast.

Those twenty minutes revved up everything the week had ground down. For that I owed Malu’s talented hands words, heart and joy.

I’ll be back. Hell, I didn’t want to leave.

I looked up her name afterward. It comes from a few cultures, though she told me she is Ethiopian. It means peace, calm, shelter, protection.

Of course it does.

The airport lounge will always be there. So will this. I know which one I’m choosing.

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