The Remedy for Social Distancing is Steaming With Your Friends
Dear Banya Family and Friends,
It has been way too long since I had a proper steam.
I have to confess: my last steam session was not at Archimedes. It was at a modern hamam in Istanbul. I’ll always remember my last steam session, not because of the beautiful lap pool and ice mountain to accompany the heat, but because that was the day Turkey announced its first case of Covid-19.
Thus began my steam starvation.
My short vacation to Turkey to visit my family became an extended lockdown when all the flights in and out of the country were grounded. Despite the disruption to my plans, it was wonderful to be next to the sea during the springtime. I watched flowers bloom and I started a vegetable garden. But Turkey prohibited public gatherings, which meant I obviously could not go to hamam or termal. Instead, I would wake up each morning, start a fire in the fireplace, and practice kundalini yoga, just to sweat a little. Moving the body in a hot room felt great, but my soul missed the connected energy from other students and my teacher’s hands-on adjustments. Even though yoga is very personal, removing critical social vibes makes the quality of my practice go down. It’s just not the same.
My feelings on the world’s condition have been rolling like the sea for the past few months. I witnessed Turks reacting to new social restrictions, such as quarantines on the weekend and limited travel between cities, while I learned about life in the US from friends and the news. When the consulate arranged an evacuation flight back to California, I endured the most intense international travel experiences of my life — we were the only flight out of the country that day, every passenger had their own row, and I wore a mask for the whole 14 hour flight. I returned home to a city in retreat. Not a solemn retreat, but one full of existential angst. You can feel the tension in the lines at the grocery store and in the overcrowded parks. We might be safe from physical harm when we shelter-in-place, but the mental harm needs to be addressed.
If we all could gather together for a steam, we would relieve that collective anxiety and mental suffering of the community. I will be there — with a face mask, if necessary — to throw more water on the rocks and to heal the body, mind, and soul in the best way I know: in the company of my fellow steamers.
As we eagerly await our reunion in the new and improved saunas at Archimedes, I am on a quest to build connections within our amazing community of steam bathers. I have been talking to other bathing obsessed people around the world to see how they are faring. Some have saunas in their backyards or have access to private banya in their neighborhood. A friend who builds saunas thinks local sweat clubs will pop up and another friend has a sauna on a trailer that is easy to clean and move around. They all believe that the healing power of socially steaming with other people present will be even more necessary now because of the pandemic.
I would like to invite you to pause and think about who you were with during your last perfect steam. How was the heat? Do you remember any good conversations you had? How about laughing together after the cold plunge? If you are anything like me, you have been dreaming that someone would walk into the sauna and ask the room full of steamers if the rocks needed another scoop of water. The best remedy for months of social distancing is steaming with your friends.
I #WishWeWereBathing together and over the next few days will be posting beautiful bathing photographs and designs from some of my favorite artists in our community of soakers and sweaters on our Instagram. We’d love to see photos of your best times at Archimedes, so please always feel free to tag @banyasf along with your Banya friends :)
With Metta and Sweat,
Ekin Balcıoğlu
PS — I would love to hear from the community! How have you been dealing without the Banya? What have you been doing to stay physically and mentally fit? Feel free to drop me a message here.
