Soramimi Hanarejima ~ The Validation of Social Bathing

1

Outside the kitchen win­dow, the wind is whip­ping, jostling the tree branch­es with a vig­or I havent seen for a while. So of course I have to stop wash­ing the dish­es and dri­ve to the hill­top park.

Standing on the grassy peak, I avail myself to the gales that rush over this open land­scape and delight in how quick­ly and com­plete­ly they whisk away wor­ry after wor­ry. With grit­ted teeth, I bear the chill that stings my cheeks and stare up at the gray sky as I stay exposed to the gusts that promise to car­ry away all the anx­i­ety that has long clung to my psyche.

But when an excep­tion­al­ly harsh gust blasts my face, I reflex­ive­ly turn away and see a woman stand­ing by the bench­es down the grav­el path on my left. The sight of her star­tles me. This is the first time Ive had com­pa­ny while doing this here. And its not just any com­pa­ny. Shes the lin­guis­tic strate­gist at work. Ive nev­er seen her out­side the office—and now here of all places? But then this makes per­fect sense. If any­one at work has wor­ries about work, its got to be her. When it comes to words, there can be so much to fret over.

I turn back to the wind, and after a few min­utes, Im almost as care­free as I was in my childhood.

 

2

On Monday morn­ing, I’m on my way to a meet­ing when down the hall­way she steps out of the office kitchen with a steam­ing mug in hand. We make eye con­tact and exchange dis­creet nods that tac­it­ly acknowl­edge our new cama­raderie. As she turns and walks away, I notice that she has a light­ness to her, and I won­der if thats how I appear to oth­ers now that the wind has unbur­dened me of my wor­ries. Maybe our cowork­ers see us this way—at ease with a freshbreezi­ness that could be the result of a much need­ed mas­sage or a real­ly good ther­a­py session.

 

3

In the mid­dle of Wednesday after­noon, a shad­ow veils the page of cal­cu­la­tions Im work­ing on, and when I look up, I find her stand­ing in front of my desk.

Lets go,” she says.

Go where?” I ask.

The roof,” she says in a tone that seems to add, “Where else?”

She leads me down inter­sect­ing hall­ways to a stair­well I didnt even know exist­ed in this build­ing. While we briskly ascend the steps, I imag­ine the seri­ous talk were going to have once were out­side. With a stern look, shell tell me not to tell any­one that I saw her at the hill­top park—something about how she cant risk being seen as unable to han­dle her worries.

But after the door at the top of the stairs has closed behind us and were faced with only the cityscape stretch­ing into the dis­tance, there is no talk­ing of any kind. There is plen­ty of wind though. Thats of course what were here for.

The surg­ing air cur­rents are refresh­ing, but soon were left with only an unsteady breeze.

How did you time this so per­fect­ly?” I ask.

I check the weath­er con­di­tions through­out the day,” she says. “That way I can seize every oppor­tu­ni­ty possible.”

Maybe for her being refreshed by the wind is more of a neces­si­ty. Or a com­pul­sive habit.

When we’re back in the stair­well, I thank her for bring­ing me up to the roof.

Sure thing,” she replies. Its nice to have some company.”

After weve gone down sev­er­al flights, she says, I can show you my best spots.”

That would be ter­rif­ic,” I answer.

I rev­el in the delight of hav­ing a per­son­al tour guide to choice windy venues—until I become keen­ly aware that Ill prob­a­bly dis­ap­point her. The hill­top is my only spot.

I can wor­ry about that lat­er though. For now, we are untrou­bled, revi­tal­ized for the rest of the workday.

 

4

After work on Friday, she dri­ves us to the bay, and we take a trail that brings us to a sea cliff. Amid the knee-high shrubs that cov­er the precipice, we let the wind sweep away all of the wor­ries weve amassed over the past sev­er­al days.

Its amaz­ing that wind gets rid of wor­ries so effec­tive­ly,” I mar­vel dur­ing the walk back to the car.

Yes, amaz­ing despite being log­i­cal,” she replies.

Logical?

Yes. The way it works.”

Oh, real­ly?”

You dont know how it works?” she asks, incred­u­lous at my ignorance.

No. How does it work?”

A strong wind can get into all the lit­tle nooks and cran­nies of the mind, and it gets wor­ries to dis­perse into the vast­ness of the landscape—thanks to the pres­sure differential.”

Oh, so thats why a wind tun­nel cant repli­cate this effect!”

Right.”

So how come mem­o­ries dont get dispersed?”

They arent as volatile as worries.”

That makes sense.”

Like I said, log­i­cal. But if you didnt know any of this, what got you into wind bathing?”

Wind bathing! So that’s the name for what I’ve been doing all this time!

Standing in the wind just felt good,” I answer. “So I kept doing it.”

Ah, what a pure way to start wind bathing!”

You didnt get into it that way?”

No, my father is a mete­o­rol­o­gist and my moth­er is a meta­phys­i­ol­o­gist, so togeth­er they always talk about the research trends in weath­er and wellbeing.”

That must have made for an inter­est­ing childhood.

 

5

We get into a rou­tine of going to windy places at the end of every work­week. Or more accu­rate­ly, I get fold­ed into her rou­tine. Shes been doing this for sev­er­al years.

On our fourth out­ing, she says, Too bad no one else is here get­ting the ther­a­peu­tic ben­e­fits of this.”

She opens her arms to the ravine weve just entered. As we stand on its grav­el shore, cold air gush­es at us, chan­neled by the moun­tains that flank the riv­er before us.

Seems like hard­ly any­one in this area wind bathes,” she con­tin­ues. Though thats also nice. We have this gorge all to ourselves.”

And sud­den­ly Im scream­ing into the wind. The pri­mal expres­sion of exis­ten­tial val­i­da­tion just erupt­ing from me. When I turn back to her, shes just star­ing at me.

Then she grins and sprints toward the water and doesnt stop when she reach­es it. Her shoes splash audi­bly in the shallows.

For a moment I won­der if I should run after her, and before I can give this a sec­ond thought, my body answers by launch­ing me in her direc­tion. Then were both stomp­ing on the peb­bly riverbed, uncon­cerned about our thor­ough­ly soaked socks, unable to care less about our pants cuffs wick­ing water toward our knees.

~

Soramimi Hanarejima is the author of the neu­rop­unk sto­ry col­lec­tion Literary Devices For Coping and whose recent work appears in Pulp Literature, The Offing, Black Warrior Review, and The Cincinnati Review.