The art of bathing (and writing)
in Morocco and Japan
I am not long back from leading two great writing journeys to Morocco and Japan. These happen to be my favorite destinations at the moment and they couldn’t be more different. But one thing they do have in common is the love of communal bathing. Communal because back in the day people didn’t have running water in their homes let alone any way to heat it in quantities needed to bath in, and also because they just love bathing together.
In Marrakech our group had the chance to experience two types of hammam. First in Marrakech, an upmarket spa style of bathhouse with hot slab, scrub and massage that left us feeling totally rejuevenated and relaxed after our long haul flights, and at the end of our journey in Sefrou at a local hammam where local women of all ages gathered for their weekly scrub and gossip. Most members of our group listed the latter as being one of the highlights of the trip.
In Japan, every evening after our daily walks through mountain landscapes we were able to soak in onsen (hot baths). Men and women bathe separately of course as they do in Morocco and in Japan some of the onsens, notably those warmed by natural hot springs, have outdoor pools where you can lie back and gaze into the starry night.
In both types of baths I have never seen women wash so thoroughly. Every bit of dry skin is vigourously scrubbed away by a mitt (Morocco) or long coarse cloth (Japan) and no part of the skin is exempt.
In the local hammam women drench each other with buckets of water and in Japan they tip water over themselves with small wooden tubs. In Moroccan bathing there’s no bath to soak in at the end but by the time you have been steamed and slathered with various clays, foaming black soaps and oil of orange blossom, you look and feel years younger.
In the Japanese onsen the soak in steaming mineral fresh waters has the same effect, and when it is all done you step into your yukata (cotton kimono) feeling as fresh as a new born babe.
It struck me that this weekly or daily sloughing off of old skin cells has its relevance to writing. Not only does it make us feel fresh and ready to tackle our onerous task, it takes all the stale old ways of thinking about ourselves and our writing and scrubs them away. More importantly the level of relaxation we experience in the bathhouse banishes our tensions and anxieties about the task ahead. Each day we are able to put on fresh, clean thoughts and begin again.
I’m hoping to incorporate the bathhouse into my weekly writing ritual although it’s not so easy to find a Japanese or Moroccan bathhouse in Australia.
Most are in Victoria see here.
There is a Korean bathhouse in North Sydney
and a Turkish bathhouse in Granville.
We might just have to go back to Morocco or Japan. Journeys are in planning for 2019. Watch this space!
Jan Cornall is a writer/performer/teacher who mentors writers and leads international writing workshops and retreats. She has written plays, screenplays and her books, Take Me To Paradise and Archipelagogo are available here. She is currently working on a literary travel memoir about following the footsteps of the French writer Marguerite Duras in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Read more Writer’s Way posts here
© Jan Cornall 2018
