Ode to Savannah

My Dear Savannah



I know that is not your given name. You were born in a far away land given 3 or 4 one-syllable names that have no more than 4 letters each.



You brought your freakishly tiny framed body across the ocean to become my best friend every three weeks, to clutch onto that attainable American dream.



You greet me with such warmth in your broken language and smile sweetly when I ask ,"HUH?" at least 43 times while you bestow your love upon me.



When you place the mask over your nose and mouth and become even more difficult to understand, your small beautifully angled eyes smile as you speak your lilting melodic language to your coworkers, surely talking about the insanely large amount of children I have or how I have put on a couple of pounds since our last rendezvous.



But all that suspicion vanishes when you focus completely on my hands and begin your foreign magic. You hum quietly to yourself as you pry with your ill-proportioned thumbnail all the old remnants from our last visit and it's hardly noticeable how nasty your fingernails are. But then again, you are always putting my needs first.



The tools that were made for wood, become instruments of art as you file and buff my hands.When you push the pedal and the drill runs with the power to put holes in doors you gently place them on my nerve-filled nails and rub away the old solar fill, only sometimes making me wince in pain from the 350 mph force that could fry an egg on my cuticle.



You so sacrificially squeeze my finger as if to take my pain away and say so oh-so-sweetly "Oh sosoddy, sosoddy." Then you ask me if I need my toes taken care of, my eyebrows waxed, or a body massage because you truly care for my well being not because you want to feed your family or buy a new knockoff Coach purse.



You so lovingly massage my hands and continue to talk to me unintelligibly, even though I intentionally keep my eyes closed and try to relax. You so innocently don't know the American custom of no speaking when you can't see the whites of someone's eyes. It's so sweetly naive.



You so kindly ask without any accent how much I am tipping you so you can add it to my credit card purchase. You so amaze me with your quick learning.



Good bye and thank you, my dear Savannah, or Ming. I will see you in three weeks.