A hulk of a man comes in and booms out "How's everybody doing?"
I'm supposing it's pretty universal, but the sweat room at this Y has live acoustics from the tile floor, tile ceiling, tile walls, tile sitting benches. You say something and it reverbs and bounces and echos around for a long time. Words leave your mouth and spend some time in that room before vanishing.
Even your thoughts keep coming back to you.
One of the men says he's doing ok.
I say. "I have never lived my life in fear and have always tried to judge a person based on the content of their character but man, there's some fuckery going on in the world right now."
And that starts the most beautiful of conversations. Maybe all conversations of import need to be done naked and sweating. Maybe if we can be stripped of the things we put on to hide our humanity we can just be. And we can just talk.
The hulk of a man starts in on his religion and I'm a bit disappointed at myself for throwing the F grenade so early into something but apparently this man's religion fully allows for swearing because he's swearing up a storm.
We all talk, and the words take on extra meaning from the timbre of the room. Sentences are said and are allowed to careen and ricochet before another is started.
The machine turns itself on. Wheezing, coughing, sputtering as it spits out the steam. Conversations stop as the heat lays upon us. But you can almost hear the thoughts of this tiny slice of Oakland as they can't be silenced by the machine. The machine shuts up, it gives up and we carry on.
I'm drinking up the love of the room. There is no fear, there is no hate in that room. You look at each face and realize everybody's sweat runs clear.
No comments:
Post a Comment