Many readers have asked me about my cold baths. Today I give you a whole post straight from the tub. If you’re cold, grab a cuppa and come with me to the lake.
As some of you know, I take a cold baths in my lake every day of the year. The only times I skip the bath are when I’m ill or if I don’t have access to a lake. -18 °C hasn’t scared me. Only once have I skipped the bath due to harsh weather, a combination of -12 °C and strong wind.
Each day a new bath
The night has left a 10 centimeter cover of powder snow. Parents are leaving their kids at the kindergarten, dog walkers take their usual routes, joggers whoosh by, flustered in the cold air. I am curious about what the ice looks like today. You see, it’s always different, always new.
Depending on temperature, downpour, clouds and humidity the ice can take endless shapes and textures. Yesterday, after a cold night, the ice in the hole was solid, dense and a challenge to break. As I arrive to the dock this morning and peak over the edge, I see the hole crowned with a humbly opaque lid. I can’t tell yet whether it is solid or mushy. Still, it is -6 °C and the possibilities are many. A starry night sky makes the ice stronger while a cloudy night may leave just a thin crust.
I wait for my cold bath friends to arrive before I break the lid. I want them to see the beautiful hole too.
Descend
When they have admired the lid I skip down onto the thick ice and start poking the cover of the hole with the shovel. The cover is sort of a lightly frozen snowfall slush that yields softly under my poking. Carving out the lid along the edges is done in no time and I get to take the first dip. Dressed in socks, mittens, hat and bikini I descend the ladder with the anticipation of a child at an ice cream stand.
As my foot slides below the surface, the slush yields and invites me into its royal mushiness. A firework of bubbles instantly rises from underneath, covering my descending body with a thousand sparkles, tickling, tingling, fizzing. I giggle out loud as I settle in the ice throne, neck deep in the water, hands and feet on the rim, head comfortably leaned back against the softly cushioned edge. Last night’s snow has added to the height of the edge, and together with the deep slush I feel gently held in my winter tub. The metro moves across the bridge as I lift my gaze above the snowy edge.
Eight breaths
The thermometer is deeply frozen into the ice and I haven’t seen more than the string it is attached to since the new year. I have no reason to believe that the water has changed from the 0 °C it was back then.
Eight slow breaths in the water, two minutes. That is what I allow myself in these temperatures. Body wants to breathe fast and furious, in panic, run away from the lion. Brain says ”Stay. Slow down, Inhale. Feel the embrace of the water. Put the world on hold. Exhale. Relax into the lake. Nobody will die.” I go with Brain and stay. Still, Body keeps persisting for the first seconds, then silences, muttering, and finally yields to the cold, allowing it to come.
Presence
I breathe. Water, ice and bubbles surface from deep below. The hole has been shaped by the meeting of ice and water. Feet and arms on the ledge like a slice of star fruit in a fizzling punch bowl, mittened hands softly touching the rim. Cold perforating my skin. I don’t know where my legs end and the water begins.
Exhale. Steamy white smoke slowly billows out of my nostrils. Inhale. Air warms up in pirouettes in my nose cavity, warming up my whole body as it whirls through me to keep me safe. I am in my breath, yet I hear the floes softly tinkling in the water. I am in my body, yet I see another metro arch across the city bridge. I am in the lake, yet I feel the warmth from within. In stillness, yet in constant movement between my inside and outside worlds, my breath connecting me to the elements. My body smiles. I am here. I am strong.
The breath of Mother Lake
As I stretch my breaths I hear the sound of a ship breaking the ice in the middle of the bay. After a while I feel it – the water softly and slowly rising and falling inside the hole, like Mother Lake breathing. The waves from the ship have travelled 200 meters underneath the thick ice and play peekaboo in my morning bath.
Two minutes, eight breaths. I allow my legs to effortlessly sink and find the bottom of the ladder. As I climb up my skin is pounding red, from the edge of my socks up to my neck. I look back down at the hole and the covered lake all the way to the waking city on the other side. I whisper ”Thank you Lake. I’ll see you tomorrow”. And I will. Come day, come bath. Come what may.
Happy spinning!
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