The third generation of sauna hands.
For most part of the Nordic year this room lies empty and cold as if it was abandoned. Nobody sits there, no discussion goes on, and no activity at all takes place there during that whole time. Just silence, void and a perfect tranquility fill the room. During daytime, in case the light is harsh, it streams into the room in rays through a small, slightly dirty window and one can see millions of miniscule dust particles move up and down in this pillar of bright light.
The room, situated in the middle of nowhere (well, in reality it can be found in the midst of Finland’s Southeastern lakeland), waits for the next season to come. This room has perseverance and a clear sense of certainty that the season will finally arrive, sooner or later. My room also seems to understand silence, the whole beauty of it.
One time a person has slept in this very room; it happened when the cottage was not yet finished and we still wanted to experience the very first sauna session. At that time Pa was still a young man possessing quite a stature and muscular upper body. I guess he must have had a very sweaty night as the only place for him to sleep was in the hot room and, of course, he did not need any sheets, just his underwear. In case he wore any, it must have been the pathetic kind they sold in the mid-1960’s: made of white cotton with small holes for better breathability, not at all as tight-fitting as today’s elastic boxers for men. When undressing sometimes, I could recall seeing a couple of tiny yellow drops on his front side. When I, as a six-year old wise guy, posed an awkward question about this, he simply said that as one performs several operations a day while occasionally encountering life and death at close range, one can get a bit scared and accidentally release a drop or two. I think it was a very manly answer.
The thick walls forming my favorite room are made old logs of Finnish pine. In spite of the fact that they have been washed innumerable times, a half-a-century old patina has been accumulated on them. If you happen to sit where I have a habit of sitting in the corner, you are bound to see a narrow opening, maybe half an inch wide, between the two highest levels of logs, just above the door frame. So much has the heavy log cabin settled down since it was built. I am sure someone else would have fixed this minor flaw in the otherwise perfect and well-kept piece of property. However, I think, my old man understood for a long time ago that it can be even an advantage to receive some extra fresh air into the heated space through this practically invisible opening.
Precisely in this room I have sat so many times alone and in company. Almost always naked sitting on a towel, very seldom wearing trunks. One time the latter happened in a company of a young American lady; her pretty swimwear discreetly hid the fact that both of her breasts had been removed due to cancer. During the most recent years I have liked to sit here in some kind of lotus posture or another sitting yoga asana that stretches my back and leg muscles. One of the qualities that I probably like most in this room after all the necessary preparations for the sauna is the unmistakable smell in the midst of all of its humidity and heat. They say that every woman smells her own way; the same is true in regard to this room, there is absolutely no other space that I know with a smell just like the one prevailing here. This special aroma is a cozy blend of smoke, ash, both dried and fresh birch leaves, human skin, pure sweat and perhaps even a couple of drops of my mother’s shampoo that has not been manufactured since 1968. Sometimes I have been wondering if I, in the abstract Freudian sense, force myself into a woman or return inside my mother’s belly while I experience my perfectly asexual, almost half-sacred session in this blessed room.
As I throw water on the hot rocks the sauna oven greets me with utmost pleasure and eagerness – especially if this happens right after the long winter break. The sizzling sound comes from the red hot stones. I happen to know who is the first one to bow and show one’s humility before the heat and exactly where in the room this wave hits you first. It is nowhere else than where I have a habit of sitting: next to the opening at the door, that is where you have undoubtedly the very worst – or the best – place to sit. In this very corner you find the sweetest spot where you have to be a real he-man to withstand the unforgiving cloud of steam while you get a bit of help from the small amount of extra air that comes in through the opening inbetween the highest logs.
Today my father is no longer big, muscular, and dark-haired nor does he walk as erect, or run as powerfully as he used to do as an agile soccer player decades ago. And he is not performing operations on the bellies of women, their breasts or other for me pretty much inconceivable parts of the reproductive region, either. However, we still, and as often as possible, sit together in this summer shrine of ours. Even silence in this half-dark space feels friendly and agreeable; you talk without words, so to speak. Sometimes we exhange a few carefully-chosen, precious words; at other times we let a unforced silence fall like in a Zen temple. Our altar consists of a hot sauna oven which will speak its uncompromising, tender language when needed while the orange glow of the primordial fire in the heart of the oven reflects playfully on the log walls.
Every time before my arrival Pa goes for a walk in the nearby woods where he fetches some branches of birch. He himself makes the birch whisks known in Finnish as vastas (or vihtas) we are about to bathe with. He likes to offer the bigger and more stylishy tied whisk to his guest while keeping himself the one that did not turn out as good. The birch leaves smell extremely good and they are soft like a young girl’s skin. And, after all, it feels always like Midsummer. I feel Pa’s touch in the birch vasta he hands over to me. He learned the art of binding one from his father in the 1930’s. To start with, my old man throws some cups of water on the rocks and they respond with a quite threatening sound. As a humble yogi, I decide it’s best to bow. Then both the old man and his son start beating (or rather, lightly touching upon) their bodies with these fresh birch clusters. After a while, say 10-15 minutes, I have to give up, climb down and open the door to the covered terrace of the lakeside sauna cabin. It’s about time to have a plunge in the lake. Just a few relaxed steps to the landing bridge and I dive in.
I can still hear how Pa throws another round on the rocks and then I detect the sound of the birch whisks hitting his wrinkled, weather-beaten skin that has protected him for the past 80 years. I can hear this sound all the way to the landing bridge. And it is then and there that I know I will be hearing this strange, yet comforting summer music as long as I will live: from my dearest and hottest room rises the eternal sound of my old man’s violent sauna bathing. And there is no doubt in my mind that he will always be the toughest, dearest, simply unbeatable sauna buddy I have ever had. In this room where we have shared so many sessions I will never be alone.
Not even that day when it is only I who goes to the sauna.
This was my sauna story in English written already for quite some time ago. Its publication was requested by some of my international friends.