Transformation, Patzcuaro Style
 Eileen Pierce - PVNN
| | Life was a afoot in Patzcuaro, and the three of us had gladly woven ourselves into the rich vibrant tapestry of it all. |
We three women friends from the same pueblo in Mexico, middle-aged and then some, had come to Patzcuaro to shop. We had already spent several days meandering up and down its paved streets, searching out artesanias crafted in the smaller pueblos scattered about the surrounding countryside.
At 7,000 feet, the air was thin, and Patzcuaro's huge Zocalo, lined with shops and taco stands and restaurants, bustled with life. Cabbies whipped around the square, women sold pastries and tortillas out of baskets and pails, and expats sat on iron benches reading the International Herald, while the town's more prosperous merchants relaxed over a shoe shine. Life was a afoot in Patzcuaro, and the three of us had gladly woven ourselves into the rich vibrant tapestry of it all.
The crisp mountain air, so different from the coast, carried the scent of mystery. We marveled at the clarity of the light, at how it illuminated each leaf on the trees in the plaza, each feather of the flocks of birds that nestled into the branches just before sunset each day. Indians wrapped in serapes, their cheekbones slicing through the chill late afternoon air, filled the stone streets.
In the market, we found piles of white and red beans, deep green bunches of cilantro, baskets woven out of pine needles from the forests that sprawl across the mountains and spill over into the valleys below, tomatoes so bright and shimmering they torment the eye. Morning creeps into the streets like an old gray cat, and night rains wash the ancient tejas roofs, sending us shivering to the nearest fireplace.
We had purchased hand-carved statues of St. Frances, tightly woven bedspreads, rich red pottery painted with flowers and hummingbirds, and whimsical wooden animals out of the dreams and nightmares of the artists who created them. We'd hunted for the perfect Katrinas, the porcelain skeletons dressed in wedding gowns and evening dresses and huge hats heavy with flowers and fruit. We'd bought a wooden table, a cow's skull, wool sweaters and cowboy hats. We had hunted down our booty in dark wood shops and overflowing tiendas, but it was in a room on the top floor of the Casa Encantada that we would find the greatest treasure in all of Patzcuaro.
At the end of our third day of shopping, legs and hips sore from walking up and down the city's streets, we gathered in front of the fireplace of our lovely suite in the Casa Encantada for a bit of a rest.
We were talking about money, specifically how to make it, when someone tapped on the door.
"He is here, Senora," the night manager Luis said, waving a hand behind him. In the shadowy garden I saw a man standing against the stone wall of the Casa. Even from 20 feet away, it was his eyes I first noticed - the liquid brown melt of them, as soft as a pelt. He smiled and I walked toward him. He was slightly built, very intense, more compelling than handsome. Nostradamus, meet Nicholas Cage.
"I am Ulysses," he said softly. Of course he was. If the universe is planned down to the very last atom, totally boundless and organized, then a mother could not have named this son anything other than Ulysses.
"Con much gusto," I said. He smiled, and I followed him across the courtyard, past the poinsettia tree, and the giggling fountain with the little birds spurting water from their plump chests. We walked through the huge kitchen, through another garden, up two flights of stairs, and into an overly large studio. White walls, a fireplace in the corner, a narrow table in the center of the room.
"Please," he said, "You clothes there ... there." He waved toward a chair, then a small desk. His English was a wreck. "I leave minute ... head down."
He motioned to the table and closed the door behind him.
Seconds passed while I pulled off my clothes, climbed onto the table face down, and reached around me to pull the cool sheet over my back.
I heard the door open and close again.
"You like music?"
"Si," I mumbled into the sheet.
I heard drums, dark hands beating on stretched animal skin, a thin, male voice chanting. Chinese, Tibetan?
"Hands cold ... sorry," he said. I smelled eucalyptus. The music grew deeper, the voice climbed high peaks, wrapped itself in clouds; wisps of centuries-old smoke seemed to fill the room.
The massage of a lifetime had begun.
As Ulysses worked on my shoulders, my restless mind fled beyond Patzcuaro, settling on memorable past massages: a woman in Kenya stroking away 24 hours of jet lag; in Provincetown I emerge from a seaweed cocoon as moist as a mermaid; in New Mexico, under a cold blue desert sky, skin shimmering from a hot stone massage, I sink like a manta ray to the bottom of a hot tub; on the island of Mystique I slumber as if in a dream through a dawn massage; in California a hydro-massage washes away a budding depression; in Stockbridge, a Buddhist presses a spot on my chest and I cry for hours. Some of them were great, some spectacular, Ulysses' was transforming.
In the two hours I spend wrapped in Himalayan chants and celestial piano sonatas, he carved the shape of nearly every bone in my body, nursing six decades of knots and kinks and miseries until my joints, cracking and popping like the Indians' fires, fled into the crisp Michoacan night.
Ulysses plucked my fingers and toes, cupped the heels of my feet, the lobes of my ears. He cradled my head in a soft towel and rocked it back and forth slowly, stretching my neck first to the right, then to the left, over and over, again and again.
"I must sit on you ... pressure on points," he said climbing up on my back, pushing deeply into my spine. I was a rag doll, a muneca, with arms and legs so long they felt as if they were attached to my torso with white string.
Ulysses moved to the CD player, replaced the Chanting with a whispering piano, so delicate and light, I longed all the more to hear it.
"Relax."
"Breathe deep."
"Breathe normal."
When he had finished, Ulysses told me that if I liked, I could stay and rest for a bit on the table in the center of the room. I lay on the table, lightheaded, wondering how my body could feel so insubstantial and so heavy at the same time. Finally I got up, feeling woozy, dressed slowly, opened the door. Ulysses was waiting in the dark hallway.
"Thank you ... Thank you so much," I said as he kissed me on each cheek. I gave him $400 pesos. "This could never be enough for what you've done," I told him, and wandered off down the stairs, through one garden, through the kitchen and the second courtyard, past the poinsettia tree, and the fountain where the birds were still refilling their stone bath. A brilliant white calla lily, rich with blooms, stunning in the moonlit garden, brushed against me.
In the suite, my friends asked, "How was it?"
"Transforming," I said, sleep walking toward the bed.
They nodded knowingly. They'd both had two luxurious hours with Ulysses.
He had roamed all three of our bodies and faces and backs, our hands and legs, our lips and temples and cheeks and neck and calves and eyelids, pressing hard and deep into our tissues at times, fluttering like small birds' wings at others. For Ulysses, we were the pieces of wood to be carved, the yarn to be woven, the pot to be fired, the straw braided.
Ulysses, this extraordinarily focused masseuse, whose face and eyes you never see while he's probing your body and releasing its pain, is coming to San Pancho for a week beginning March 23rd. I'm thinking maybe three hours this time. After all this is Mexico, and one can expect a fair share of miracles on any given day.
To book your 1, 2 or 3-hour massages call Tamara in San Pancho at 045-322-139-5231.
 Eileen Pierce is a former staff writer and columnist for the Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, MA and in the last few years was the PR/Marketing Director for the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, MA. The co-author of the 2005 Fodor's Guide to the Berkshires and Pioneer Valley, Eileen continues to freelance for various publications, including the Boston Globe. She and her partners run the Inn of the Gata Gorda in San Pancho, Nayarit where they live year round. For more information or to make reservations at the Inn de la Gata Gorda in San Pancho, Nayarit, Mexico call (311) 258-4190. From the US call (413) 553-3628 or send an email to finefix@gatagorda.com. |
Vallarta Weddings
Vallarta Living | March 2007 
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