It's time up for me to go for pedicure, I thought as I looked up at my toe nails at the verge of curling down. I could have walked up to the Nail salon just next door to our appartment complex, for it would have saved me money and time. But I wanted to go to the salon at Fashion Valley mall where I had been getting my pedicure done for the last four years I'd been in San Diego. Yes, it's $15 dollars more than the one next door and someone had to drive me across the town to go there. But I prefer going there for the pampering and special attention I get there. I think every woman needs to be pampered now and then to feel special. Especially it means a lot for a stay-at -home mom who somehow feels that it's her role to pamper everyone except herself. I work part -time now so I'm no more a stay-at -home mom, but that doesn't mean I avoid getting pampered.
I remember it well the first time I had the luxury of getting a massage and nail treatment in a spa. It was a gift from my oldest daughter for Mother's Day. I was in fact so nervous to walk into the salon that I almost turned around and walked back to the car. I wasn't sure what to expect in a posh salon like that where mostly young women came for beauty treatment and tanning. But when I walked out later after a soothing back massage, hands dipped in hot wax and manicured and the sole of my feet feeling like baby's bottom, I decided to count as one of my precious moment to remember.
Though I didn't follow up later with massage and spa treatments, I somehow continued to get a pedicure on a regular basis. It almost became a necessity because I could no longer bend down and cut my nails. Yes, aging does interfere and cause us to call for assistance. I could view that as a blessing in disguise, instead of blaming on my bulging tummy or poor back.
Lilly was my first nail technician at Spa &Salon in Fashion Valley. She was a petite Vietnamese woman in her fifties. It's not my nature to engage in conversation when I go to a hair salon, spa or grocery store. I like to be left alone with a magazine to read. But Lilly wouldn't allow me to do that. She knew the art of drawing customers like me into conversation. Also, she also knew how to pamper her customers by offering to bring coffee or water to the chair, bringing the latest People's Magazine filled with juicy celebrity news , choosing the perfect nail polish for the toes and giving a good foot massage. During the time I spent on the spa chair while she filed my nails and massaged my foot, I learned a lot from her and she, something about me too.
Soon, I found out that she was one of the boat people who came from Vietnam in the early seventies. She was single and pregnant when she came and already she had three young mouths to feed. She neither knew English nor an education to support her young family. Thankfully, she had some relatives to give her shelter and food at the beginning. I can't imagine how this unskilled and uneducated woman from far east got the courage to pull through the early years in a foreign land probably in a hostile environment. Today, I see her as a strong, confident woman fluent in English and well skilled as a nail technician. In between years, only she knows how many challenging moments and precious moments she must have gone through to make the woman she's today. Unfortunately, Lilly is no more working in this salon now. She had been laid off a month ago due to job cuts.
Ann was another nail technician who attended to me when Lilly wasn't free .When Ann told me that her husband was once a diplomat serving in foreign service, I found it hard to believe her. Why should she , who was once a diplomat's wife chose to wash, massage and nail polish other women's feet? Hasn't she felt demeaning to do a job like that. After all , at one time she must have mingled with other diplomats' wives at parties and beauty parlors and then to choose to scrub other women's feet and attend to their needs sounded unimaginable to me. Didn't she consider it to devalue her status in her community in some way? I would have definitely thought like that if I had been in her position.
Jesus Christ, before He had His last supper in the Upper Room,got down on His knees and washed the dusty feet of His twelve disciples, including Judas and gently wiped them with the towel in His hand. Here, I, who pride myself to be a follower of Him cannot even imagine myself giving foot massage to another person. Though I don't see myself a prideful person, such attitude made me to see what is hidden deep inside me. For sure, there are some ugly spots that need to be washed and bleached to make me humble and gracious.
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