Winter 2024

Back from a late swim. I love the pool now. But what I really love is the sauna. The women’s sauna brings me closer to woman-nature than many things do or have. Learning to be freely naked and accepting there has fortified my love of bodies. And of breath and of women.

It’s some of the only 20 minutes I have in a day without a screen or a sound or a conversation – it’s just me breathing and sweating in the dark heat. And it’s almost too hot and too dark to be preoccupied with anything else at all.

I’ve learned from that quiet time (my mind goes crazy making lists and plans before it gives in) that I’ve become pretty fucking type A, and that I reach for control to feel peace. But being creative brings peace, too. You could argue it brings a sense of control, but really there is no control. Making art doesn’t ease anxiety because it puts me in charge, it defeats my anxiety because it refuses to be wrangled or deployed it “just so”.

While I think about what makes me feel peaceful, I am drawn to the shapes in the sauna. Sometimes while I’m falling asleep I have visions of hands and feet in various positions.

When we enter the sauna, we’ve all silently agreed to be stunning and sweaty and to hang our legs up on the wall and drape our arms over our heads like sirens on the big rock.