Growing up, Saturday night was sauna night. My father and five brothers (with help from me and mom) built an authentic Finnish sauna in the woods, with notched cedar logs and a wood stove, and a dressing room and an exercise area, and a shower room and cedar rounds leading up to the front door, and a map of Finland on the wall. Well maybe it wasn't authentic, but it was wonderful. During the week we kids took turns chopping wood for the stove (I once split my big toenail in two with an errant axe) and on Saturday nights, the family took turns: guests, parents, girls, boys, usually in that order. I was the only girl, so it was a solitary affair unless relatives were visiting.
Lying on the cedar bench, I would listen to the crackling of the fire, the hooting of owls, the wind in the trees, and the hiss of steam as I ladled water on the rocks.
I could hear the crunch of gravel and creak of the exterior stove door as someone stoked the fire from outside. If the heat became too intense, I would shower and return. Sometimes I brought a book and read while the pages grew limp from steam. Eventually a brother's insistent knocking would end my reverie.
I learned how to be alone in that sauna, which was not easy for an extroverted adolescent girl. It was often lonely, a feeling I rarely encounter today.
Now, whenever I smell cedar, I am sent back to that state of lonely serenity. (Tea tree oil has the same effect, so I use a fancy pants hair conditioner for the scent).
While I would like someday to build a small sauna in my backyard, I make do with a less romantic version at the local gym. It is usually vacant on Sunday (one of the reasons I love my gym). After a good workout, I shower and take a swim in the quiet pool. After a soak in the hot tub, I finish my routine with a long sauna.
So last week I was surprised to find the sauna already occupied by an elderly man in running shorts and a dish towel draped over his head. He was facing a bench and doing knee bends, looking very serious and faintly ridiculous. I ignored him, took the top bench and closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, the man was frowning at me. In a thick accent, he said "one must MOOOVE to get benefit of the SAHna!" He made some bending motions.
I must have looked dumbstruck. You see, I am a nice person. I even look nice, the kind of person people are always stopping to ask for directions, or the time, or a spare dollar.
But this was really beyond the pale.
"Sir." I said. "YOU can't tell how to take a SOW-na. My people invented the sauna. I grew up in a sauna. I KNOW how to take a sauna. Maybe not a FRENCH sah-na, but a Finnish sauna."
But he was not deterred. Neither was he French. He went into great detail about his cardiovascular health and stamina, and whipped off his head towel to display proudly a full head of hair, suspiciously free of gray. He introduced himself as "Dr. John" and said he came here at age 18 from Roumania, and keeps up on all the American AND British medical journals, and knows what ails "you people" and it isn't just fast food and "quick carbos."
He stared pointedly at my middle-aged physique and said I should "stop the eating of milk."
I showed restraint. I did not demonstrate my newfound core strength (Nautilus-derived) and suspend him by his ankles, or his full head of hair. I did not MOOOVE a muscle. Nor did I tell him I am lactose-intolerant.
Instead I laughed and laughed and told him he was FUNNY. Then I quickly left the sauna, before the Devil got the upper hand.
But I may bring some birch branches next time.
That'll show him.
*****
Share your sauna stories!
