Sauna
Notes from a Sunday
A community sauna opened up near my island home recently. Like many a thing, the idea initially started as a joke. Something the swimming group would laugh about as we toweled off, shivering from our single degree winter swims. But speak about anything often enough, even in jest, and it eventually finds a way to manifest. Now the barrel, open 3 days a week, has become an instant quality of life enhancer.
I’ve been trying to understand what it is that makes my time in the sauna so special - to capture its essence so I can bring more of that magic into the rest of my life. A big part of it is the change of state. Bracing cold dips in the sea, followed by 60C+ heat dismantles any sense of it being a normal event. There I am present. My lips are burning. My body under duress. It eventually gets too uncomfortable to bear. I dip again. I feel alive. One of my favourite parts of the experience is walking home in my dryrobe, still warm, despite the rain and easterly breeze. I am at ease.
With each session the novelty fades. A ritualistic quality is emerging in its place.
Beyond the physical, there is also the community aspect. Tourist season hasn’t yet begun so the sauna is nearly exclusively populated by us locals. Sweating together causes a certain type of bonding. While this hasn’t lent itself to great acts of vulnerability or intimacy, the experience creates a connective thread. Those of us who sauna are tied together in ways that those who don’t are not.
It’s rare to find third spaces which aren’t centred around drinking or a more structured activity. Saunas are that uncommon in-between. A place where you’re both doing and being. Escaping the day-to-day with people you see everyday. Perhaps that duality is where the magic lies.
I loved this reflection.