Future Tense

Asphalt sauna. The late summer blacktop of a generic office park in the sprawling outskirts of north Buffalo. My first time here. I had to do a couple laps of the parking lot to find the place, off to the side by itself. There is a hand-painted sign above the door, below a cantilevered roof with brown shingles.

I am here on the recommendation of a friend, or more than a friend. It's hard to tell sometimes. She's a crossfitter. Vegan. A hardcore type. She just moved to this neighborhood a month or two ago, into an unassuming brick-fronted ranch on a shady side street. Already she's restored the hardwood floors in the living room, bought a shiny new chrome dishwasher, fridge, and stove with new enamel cookware, and installed a gym in the basement with a full squat rack.

She’s tall, with dirty blonde hair that she usually wears pulled back or in a French braid, and has a revolving set of hip, ironically large glasses, each a different color to match her outfit or mood. She brings her cuter-than-hell labradoodle, the same dirty blonde color, to agility classes a couple times a week. The objective: run a series of tunnels, seesaws, slaloms, and jumps in the fastest time.

One day we are hanging out on the couch, pooch at our feet, talking about our various aches and how we should be easier on ourselves; not push quite so hard. The agility competitions are fun, she says, but she can't do them too often. "I'm too competitive. I'll want to win." I tell her about the uncomfortable tightness behind my shoulder, probably from running and swimming and hunching over the handlebars of my bike. Something that's always there.

"You should go to Rainforest Room. I go once a month and Heather is amazing. You’ll feel better." She texts me the address and phone number. "But drink lots of water," she says. "She’ll work it all out of you.”

Two weeks later, I walk up and a bell jingles as I pull open the door. I enter a small reception area greeted by a glory of greenery. A big leafy palm stands in the corner, a sprawling ficus in the bay window, monsteras perch beside comfy seats, potted plants hang from the ceiling and cascade down the check-in desk and coffee table.

"Hi, do you have an appointment?", Heather asks with a smile from behind the desk.

"I do", I reply, and tell her my name.

"It will be just a minute."

I take a seat nestled in the foliage. There is a burbling fountain on the end table next to me and an essential oil atomizer wisping lavender and eucalyptus from across the room. The sound of soft rain plays over the speaker.

"Okay, ready." She walks me down the hall to the treatment room. Soft light, trancelike yogic music, the smell of lotion and warm towels, more plants.

“Anything bothering you or that you want to concentrate on today?” My left shoulder is stiff and less mobile than my right, I tell her. Sometimes it hurts when I lift it. “Show me.” I turn to face her and stand up straight, then lift both arms from my side. The left sags behind and makes a crinkly pop as it passes the horizontal. I may have exaggerated a little. Her eyes widen. “Wow, do that again.” Under closer scrutiny, no theatrics. I raise my arms more evenly, but still a crack. “Is it always like that?”, she asks.

“Pretty much," I say. "I think that’s where I carry my tension.”

“We’ll work on it. I’m gonna leave the room now. Undress and lie face down on the table, under the sheet.”

And now nakedness. Vulnerability. Reminder of why I'm here. The on-again off-again ambiguous dating relationship of the past year or so. Trying to get everything I want and coming up against some hard truths about the kind of person I become: two-faced, flaky, confused, emotionally spent.

I fold my clothes in a basket by the wall and mount the table. A minute later, Heather knocks and comes back in.

"What level of pressure would you like?", she asks.

"You can go hard. Deep tissue", I say.

She squirts a couple pumps of lotion into her hand and begins with my feet, manipulating my toes and metatarsals, pressing out the soles, and gently shaking my ankles. It feels good. She moves to my calves and hamstrings, first rubbing to warm the skin, then kneading and stretching more deeply, more slowly. Tiny pinches as her hands run over the hair on my leg.

Am I supposed to make conversation? Is it rude not to? I close my eyes and try to relax.

The health of the world's rainforests is deteriorating, approaching a tipping point. That's according to a recent U.N. report. More than half of all rainforest has already been lost. More than half. Every minute, 100 acres are felled to agriculture and development. And under the rollback of environmental protections by Brazil's populist president Jair Bolsonaro, deforestation in the largest rainforest on Earth, the Amazon, is increasing.

She works my pelvis and lower back. Spine, neck, and cranium. Then the right shoulder blade, trapezius, shoulder, and tricep. She moves to the left shoulder. “No wonder it hurts. There’s a huge knot here.”

The Lungs of the World, repository of more than half of its biodiversity. A ten square kilometer patch can contain 750 species of trees alone. But fragmentation, poaching, illegal logging, drilling, palm oil plantations, homesteading, and ranching are placing extreme pressure on the integrity of these systems. Species extinction is occurring 1000 times faster than the natural background rate. And biodiversity equals stability. Like Jenga bricks, some can be pulled out without consequence, but pull too many and eventually the structure will collapse.

Warning signs. Keep plowing ahead. More excuses, more maybes, and let's-not-talk-about-its. Pretend it isn't there. Nervous tapping in my fingers, tightening in my chest, gut, and throat. My shoulder clenches.

Heather works slowly, methodically, navigating every fiber and ligament with knowing fingertips, palms, the heel of her hand. I breathe sharply and grimace. "That okay?", she asks. "Yes," I reply tersely between breaths, "good."

I am tense for the future, the world I am inhabiting and inheriting. It will be hot. It will be crowded. It will be unpredictable. I am tense for cavalier destruction of beautiful things. I am tense for the life I am building, and failing to build, and for the swift current of years pulling me forward, forward. These are bittersweet lessons that can only be learned by going down the wrong road and then realizing you are lost.

That to care for something you need to first understand it. Allow it to be completely and unabashedly itself, with no reservations, no hesitation. You must have respect.

Heather has me turn over and does my quads, chest, the front of my shoulders, my forearms and hands. Then finally, rest. Nothing. Melting. Oblivion.

"Come out whenever you're ready," she says, and leaves the room.

When I finally open the door and approach the desk I am so worked over I can’t see straight. I can barely talk. I feel wrung out like a sponge. I hand over my credit card. “What is a knot anyway?”, I ask.

"It's when a muscle gets bunched up on itself from overuse or imbalance," she says. "It congeals and becomes sticky, like silly putty."

I nod.

"Yours will take more than one session to work out."