WAYMART — On a beach in Naples, Florida, Tracy Little of Little relaxations in Waymart, had a moment of enlightenment.  Feeling rather like a drift of seaweed on the waves before her, not sure of where life would take her, she opened up a newspaper and saw an advertisement for massage therapy school, a nine-month certification program. 

On little more than a whim, she enrolled and completed the course, and hasn’t looked back since.

After graduating in 1996, she began working for a chiropractor in Naples, working with victims of head, neck, and spine injury and trauma before coming back home to Wayne County in 1998.  “I loved the experience,” she says, “I feel like I gravitate toward the head and neck.”

Her family having been in Waymart for over 30 years, Tracy, coming back to the business deprived Belmont Street in Waymart, decided that the one-light town could use a massage therapy center, much in the same way they didn’t know they needed a gas station. “I guess I consider myself sort of a pioneer.  I looked around and there wasn’t one, and why not? It’s centrally located between Wayne County and Carbondale area.”

And all she needed to make it work was to know 200 people, which, anyone who has lived in Wayne County for any period of time knows, isn’t a problem. What once were the cons of living in a small town to an unsure youth, suddenly were pros to an ambitious adult.

So she opened the shop in 1999 and has been smooth sailing up into the present day.

“I just want to heal the world one back at a time.  In a world of the stress and strife of daily living, if I can touch someone in a way that honors them, relaxes them, and makes them feel like they are the only person in the world for a half an hour, then my job is done,” she says.

For her, the process really starts at the doors, and her favorite compliment to hear from clients is that as soon as they walk in her doors, into the cedar paneled waiting room and relaxing music, the subtle, sweet-smelling oils, they already feel relaxed. 

 And as opposed to being another masseuse at a larger spa, she prefers the intimacy of being a massage therapist in a smaller space, and calls being compared to a traditional spa, “comparing apples to oranges.” 

In 2002 therapist Julie Crum-Styles, another Waymartian, joined the center, allowing the team to take on more clients, as well as perform tandem massages for couples or best friends looking for a day out.  Of Crum-Styles, Little says, “Her hands are as compassionate and strong as her heart.”

Prices range from $32 for a half an hour, to $55 for an hour, to $75 for 90 minutes, with an modest $5 addition for stone treatment or aromatherapy.  The center specializes in “fusion therapy” and also performs sea salt scrubs and rose body mud treatments with massage.  The center is located at 251 Belmont St. in Waymart, and is open Monday through Friday from 10 am to 7 pm by appointment. For more information or to schedule an appointment, call 488-7378. 

“Every day is as new an exciting as the day I graduated,” Little says, “For me and my clients, it’s quiet place to just be.”