This Time of Year

I love the evening massages at this time of year, the quiet ebbing of the light, crossing from day to night; skin talking to skin, tuned to the rhythms of another body, losing the fret of my own life because, for once, it's not my life I'm attending to. I'm the outrider of sleep, a servant of rest. I love the fact that I'm intimately connected and yet -- not a person at all, not someone who has to be entertained or impressed. I'm just a pair of hands that light and warmth come through. Massage sidesteps all that I find most tedious in dealing with people: the anxiety and positioning, the endless production of words and opinions and judgements. All that just goes away, and I can do the only thing I ever wanted to do, which is love people.