Mess by Molly

My half-clothed mom places a steaming coffee next to my bedside in our Busan Korea hotel room.  She has been hiding out in the bathroom for the past hour trying not to wake me until 6:00am when the gym opens.  Cardio is her sacred early morning ritual.  

‘Don’t talk to me before my exercise,’ was a familiar mantra from childhood. Fortunately, she worked out before breakfast.  Bedecked in her silky 80s tennis jogging suit, luscious black hair tucked under a braided headband, she pedaled furiously on the white stationary bike with rotating handlebars, loudly blasting cool air from an enormous silver metal fan aimed directly at my snoring father in the master bedroom of our Fargo home.    

Hot cup in hand, I peer out the window to admire the early morning cotton candy pink and blue sky tinting the wispy clouds as the sun rises over a tranquil sea.  Commercial skyscraper buildings and casino hotels with names in Korean script blend into the dark surrounding hillsides of jutting archipelagos.  Only a few small boats dot the waters on this side of Busan, the paramount port of Korea. 

Later this morning the Korean government is sponsoring an excursion to a Buddhist temple followed by a tea ceremony or spa visit.  Eager to showcase their rising wireless prowess with powers such as Samsung and LG, they are hosting a United Nations technology meeting with over 300 international delegates.   My mom is invited to the field trip as my plus one.   She joins my business travel, when possible, to maximize my free hotel room.  

At 27, I welcomed her company because it provided an almost guaranteed reprieve from my bulimia, ever present as a habit and coping mechanism back home. Sharing a room generally ensured accountability to not binge and purge.  Additionally, the adrenaline of experiencing a foreign place with a varied routine occupied my brain so easier not to fall into the same addictive patterns.

I scurry down to the fitness center to sweat out my work stress, yesterday’s calories, and dull the omnipresent critical voice in my head; regulating my breathing and stimulating endorphins until I feel calm and ready to face the day. The health club features unique machines including an electronic riding horse and hosts members from outside of the hotel; some well into their 80s wearing white and black uniforms provided at the check-in counter.

After our workout, we meet outside the lobby where blue tourist buses transport us to a renowned cliffside shrine.  Amid Buddha statues and pagodas, we marvel at the ocean view and spindly stairs down to the sea where waves crash meditatively against the rocky landscape. The group split into two, one venturing to a mountain monastery for tea and the other, including us, to an infamous Korean bathhouse.  

At a multi-storied building we are immediately segregated by gender and directed towards the female locker room among delegates from Canada, France, Brazil, the US, Germany, China, Japan, and Russia. The cheerful spa attendant hands us a tiny white towelette, along with a plastic coiled wristlet attached to a key.  We make our way past showers and beauty stations to discover our lockers which are just big enough to fit our shoes and clothing.  Other than a pair of plastic sandals it is empty.  

At a minimum we expected a towel to accompany us from the locker room to the safety of the water, but everyone here is fully naked carrying only her handkerchief.   We giggle nervously.   Perhaps a nude field trip with international government delegates was not the brightest idea. My mom shoves her remaining clothes into the locker, slips her feet into the sandals, grabs her towelette, and chides ‘hurry up’.   I glance at my European colleagues who I assumed would be more adventurous than me; they remain clothed.

A cavernous enclosure greets us with stone archways and numerous pools, each one larger than an average jacuzzi at temperatures varying from scalding hot to frigid cold.  Individual vanity stations equipped with personal shower heads host bare breasted women leisurely rinsing themselves.  Massage tables sit in one corner while a mighty freezing waterfall and a life size piece of exfoliating salt are in another section.

We delicately dip our feet into the scorching basin with a few miscellaneous shaped ladies who seem to find our first experience amusing.  We smile broadly, our only form of communication.    My mom and I ooohh and ahhh to express contentment. 

I am intrigued by my mom’s body confidence in her fifties.   

“When did you get comfortable being naked around strangers?”

“Me?   I was terrified in the locker room.” 

“Really?  You always walk around naked at home.”  

“That’s different.   I learned to love my body.  That happened after I began lifting weights at about 35.  I appreciated my growing muscles in the mirror.   Are you comfortable being naked?”  

“No.  I know I’m way too skinny.  I’d be back in the locker room with the other women if it weren’t for you.  I hated my tennis muscles growing up.  I wanted to be like my stick-skinny tan California friends in their triangle bikinis.  Going into the jacuzzi at parties with my farmer tan and butt was horrible.”

We’re interrupted by the other women from work who shuffle out washcloths covering either their boobs or their vaginas. 

I feel a strong tugging on my right arm.  I look up to see a robust Korean woman of medium-height, short black hair, broad shoulders, thick arms, sturdy legs, and a filled-out belly.  She motions me to follow her.  I step out of the pool and am steered in my full nakedness across the monumental room.   I sense the eyes of my coworkers watching my flat bony butt as the dark-haired woman stands me in front of the oversize salt sculpture.   

Grabbing a sizeable hunk of salt, she begins furiously scrubbing me which burns abrasively. My mom, nowhere to be found, has left me in the hands of the “village”.   Another woman comes to consult, presumably about happens next.  The two of them, giggling, breasts jiggling, guide me over to the massive freezing waterfall and simultaneously shove me underneath.  Hard freezing water awakens my internal life force and I’m in the moment. I emerge, smiling.