Clean

One of my favorite sensations in the world is to slip between cool cotton sheets, clean and dry after taking a long, hot shower.  It earns double-wonder points if the bed has a freshly sunned and fluffed feather mattress on it and if the sheets are right out of the dryer and still fragrant with fabric softener.  This seems like a little thing, I'm sure, but sometimes the little things are the best things.

I still remember after Katrina when I had no power for two weeks.  Although I had running water, the hot summer and the hard work of trying to clear all the downed trees from my yard covered me in sweat constantly.  In the evenings when the sun had gone down and things cooled off somewhat, I would stumble into my bathroom and take a cold shower by the light of a kerosene lantern.  The tepid water did get me clean, did help bring down the infernal temperature somewhat, but every time I slid under it, I felt a little horrible.  When my parents got their power back, we had a meal that wasn't from a can and then I took a long shower at their house.  I think I cried.

I also remember my first chaotic night in Costa Rica, the delayed flight, the drunk host family who came to get me in a car too small for two people (there were five of us in it), the breakdown and walking, and then, finally, after all of that, a really scary electric showerhead designed to heat the water as it came through that I did not know how to operate.  I tried and tried to get hot water out of it, and I finally just jumped under the freezing cold stream enough to wash the day of travel off me before burrowing in beneath insufficient covers to shiver the rest of the night away.

In many cultures, bathing is a ritual, an important part of daily life.  Japan was wonderful for this.  I still want one of the gas water heaters like I had there, one that heated as much water as you wanted on demand.  I could literally have showered forever there if I had the money to pay the bills....  This isn't even bringing in the happiness of a bathtub with enough hot water to fill it up to my chin.

More than any of these, though, is a happier memory of Costa Rica from my second trip there.  After a tremendously long day painting, digging septic fields, and pushing large trucks out of deep mud, we were taken to the Tabacon Spa whose hot springs were heated and enriched by Arenal, one of the most active volcanoes in the world.  I remember they had pools and miniature water falls where you could sit and stare up at the almost full moon while the hot water pounded down on your aching back and shoulders.  It was beyond wonderful.

I'm looking forward to trying the culture of the hamam while I'm in Turkey.  I did the community baths in Japan a couple of times, and it was very nice, very relaxing.  I have been reading up on etiquette for this, and  while I have no idea if I want to go be the big, odd foreigner again (sometimes that gets really old), it sounds like something I'll enjoy.  Maybe it will be another memory to add to this rather odd collection of cleanliness.