Is there a whimsy that comes with every heart? Or does it just come with some? I’m trying to improve and yesterday, I had a schedule, a plan, one I went into with I with determination. It would be a tight schedule of events, the list told me so.

But then, I received a call from a friend who works for Core/El Centro, a non-for-profit healing center. I listened. An appointment had opened up with their Thai Yoga Massage practitioner. Something fluttered in my stomach, it was the excitement that begins when I know I’m about to surrender to a whim.

***It’s the same feeling I remember from high school when a classmate would try to tempt me into skipping class. There would be only four minutes to decide (whimsical decisions flourish with ‘seconds to decide’ sort of moments) and ringing bells bracketed those four minutes precisely.

Bell: that alarming institutional sound that either informed you ‘you are late’, or ‘you can relax now, it’s over with and you have four minutes to do what you need to do and get to the next class’.

(((The word ‘bell’ is too innocent for this sound. It was more like a warning signal.)))

Within those four minutes, the halls would flood with students, and friends would go to far extents to pass notes, and lovers would run to opposite ends of the building to kiss, and smokers would puff as fast as they could in a bathroom stall…and towards the end of the third minute would come the last minute sounds of slamming lockers and sneaker squeaks, and then the bell would ring again. The halls became empty again, and while some scrunched into little chairs and opened their books, others would bust out of the school doors and into the sun, moving quickly and away and out of the teachers’ sights.***

I told my friend to sign me up.

I’ve never had what I considered to be a life changing, body loving massage, until yesterday.

I love Core/El Centro. The people there are the sweetest on earth. If you need a friend, or someone to care, just go to Core. It’s a volunteer based organization that caters to the Hispanic population here in Milwaukee. You can receive natural and alternative treatments and take exercise classes, such as yoga, Nia and Qi Gong, all on a sliding scale basis.

There are so many positive ways that Core/El Centro has changed my life that I’ll have to share that with you in other posts, the list is just too long to fit it into one.

So I went to my appointment, open and with no expectations. Jack Wusler, who runs a practice called Milwaukee Therapeutic Massage greeted me in the treatment room with with kindness and asked me to tell him what was going on. “Lot’s of things,” I said, but I settled on sticking with just the basics of what was physically ailing me.

“I’m going to be 35,” I said, “I think I’m falling apart.” He smiled, and assured me that human bodies stay the same from 20 years of age until the day you die, it just slows down a little. I was glad to hear that.

I can’t tell where Jack’s from, someplace tropical and loving I could sense, and if the sun has a smile, Jack embodies it.

The minute I laid down on the table, I could see the stars of a night sky. I sunk into its weightlessness. I felt like I was floating in the ocean, being carried and held. I allowed the waves to gently guide me into its twists and turns, circular and flowing.

Occasionally, a muscle would panic and shake, and I would envision coming to that place in my body, and calm it with the ‘shhhhhhhhh’ of my breath.

There was clutter in my body, and as it was released, I sometimes had the sensation that I wanted to cry. I felt nurtured, loved, stretched and opened with the ocean’s tide.

I saw sunsets over water, and when the massage was finished, I could barely walk. I felt like a noodle, my face was puffed like I had been crying, but I knew I hadn’t been.

This morning, I still feel like fresh set jello, wiggling in the wind.

Jack advised me to drink plenty of water. Toxins were released, emotions that had harbored in the muscles let go, and I am to drink water to replenish and clean them.

Cheers to you. I’d like to make a toast with my water.

Here’s to whimsical hearts that take us exactly where we need to be.

When’s the last time you set out on a whim and where did it take you?

Happy Friday.