I write to you from underneath the pink UV lights. They will soon shift purple, then blue, then back again. The page is slightly damp. Salty splashes periodically hit it, from the miniature pool where my feet are soaking. Next to me is a big pool. Big enough for hundreds of feet, hands, bodies, and heads.
One of the bodies is talking, I can hear him in English. He’s saying something about the “trials”, telling a circle of floating listeners about the “research” and “regulations”. About the “delicate process” of getting the “right dose” to achieve the “optimal mental state”.
I don’t know what the dose is of, I missed that part. But '"'optimal mental state”? I think I have experienced it, but is it optimal if it is always fleeting? If it has never stayed? What is the cost of achieving it?
Cut to two hours prior.
I am sitting in a bucket, ice water up to the nape of my neck. 4 minutes have gone by like this. I am not sure how. The woman with the voice and the clock is saying things. Numbers. She is telling us to use our voices. I start to moan ‘OM’ as she tells us, but the sound registers as a dying horse.
Am I dying? The woman with the voice says she is proud of me. Of my posture and my noises. I simultaneously hate her and think her pride in me is the greatest achievement in my life.
Is this therapy?
She is saying more numbers. The guy across the circle from me has a pained expression.
“Wash your face!” Dragon Lady demands. But every time I move my hands out from under my armpits, I am reminded that this is happening. That there are ice cubes between my fingers and ribs.
“I’m cramping! Is this normal?” The guy in the tub across from me yelps.
“Well, you can get out.”
That feels like a non-answer, and the Viking couple next to me love it. They are howling together. They have big muscles and intimidating haircuts. And I am looking to them for guidance.
More dying animal noises. More numbers. Almost six minutes have passed.
Is Dragon Lady my Virgil? What circle of hell is this? Is this dystopic heaven?
At once, we are free. And yet, we are not free. We rise, the six of us, and find our way, naked, across the tiles. We now resemble dinosaurs — craning our necks, contorting our limbs, and arching our spines in formations I have only seen in horror films. We are trying to escape the feeling. But what is this feeling? I’ve never experienced it before. My hands feel like they have been run over by a car. Multiple times. Why does every bone and muscle hurt?
The seasoned Viking couple show their teeth. “This is normal!” they claim.
The crampy guy is still cramping. He looks as though he’s been betrayed.
We are told this feeling will soon pass, and we can go back to our regular spa activities once our body temperature returns to the balmy 26 degrees of The Well Wellness Lounge Zone.
I only know that I need to lie down. Immediately. My hands have stopped working to put on my robe so I somehow scoop my head under it and make for the Wellness Lounge. I walk, remarkably, through spinning space.
Dragon Woman said this would wear off, but when? She said there would be dopamine? And new brain cells? What the fuck? I feel as though I am actually dying. No, not like ‘Omg haha I’m dying!’ or ‘You’re killing me!’ But, like, the corners of my vision are going black. All I want to do is lay down and sleep. Forever. I am forgetting how to breathe. All I can see are sweaty people and swinging dicks and smoothies.
I find my final resting place among them. A nice spot, next to the window and the fireplace. I fall into it stiff like a board, naked, my hands curled up like little dinosaur claws into my chest. Has this happened before? Have there been other deaths at The Well?
I hear the couple next to me speaking English, something about timeshares. They are my last tether to this world, they are my only hope.
“Um, excuse me,” I say from behind their couch.
It takes them a moment to realize this naked dinosaur is trying to address them.
“Oh, hi, yeah?”
“I, um, really don’t wish to be doing this, but I… I kinda think I am dying. I just did the Ice Box Experience and I think I’m going to die.”
“Oh, damn,” the guy says, so fucking casually. “Honestly, I did that once and thought the same thing. Never doing that shit again.”
“But yours was just a cold plunge,” she says, not closing her book, “That’s a bit different I think.”
“Oh, yeah, well, anyway. I mean, you could be dying… like, people do die from that sort of thing,” he shrugs. “But you’re probably fine.”
“Could you just, like, check on me in 3 minutes and make sure I haven’t passed away?”
They say sure and go back to reading. But these are my last few minutes on Earth. I want to enjoy them, so I ask if they are American.
They tell me about Tennessee and Alaska and I remain tethered to this Earth long enough to feel very embarrassed and like I am ruining their spa experience with the burden of asking them to watch over my life.
I excuse myself, and muster every ounce of courage I obtained from Dragon Woman’s affirmative pride in me, and rise to find my companion.
By some miracle, I find Kristina within a few minutes over at the Crystal Cove. By the time I get there, I have crossed a threshold into a new phase of this. Teeth chattering and shivering. My nipples have shrunk to a new size I have probably not experienced since birth. This is my dopamine, this is my new brain cell.
She turns to see me and my expression which she could only describe later as someone who is having a really bad acid trip. Her history of party patrol shows itself, and she calmly and carefully guides me to the BioRoom where the temperature is not blistering hot, but warm enough to stop my teeth from chattering.
I tell her about Dragon Woman and Crampy Guy and Scary Viking Couple. Things slowly turn normal again. I am finally returning back into my body and the whole thing is becoming hilarious. Even more so because we are not supposed to be laughing or making any noise.
But this ‘Optimal Mental State’. Did I achieve it?
We spent the remainder of the day scrubbed and lathered, fanned with waves of steamy essential oils. Weaving through a maze of dozens of caves and hot rooms.. getting sprayed with hoses and being mesmerized by people dancing with damp towels. Perhaps somewhere along this, Optimal Mental State was achieved… In blissful hysterics with Kristina in the Bio Room. For about 5 seconds of the six minutes under Dragon Woman’s watchful eye. Or maybe when I noticed tears falling as the masseuse gingerly stroked and gently gathered my hair. Like how a mother or a friend would.
Still, everything passes. The smoothie cup empties. My nipples return to their regular size. The laughter is swallowed by silence and hot rocks eventually go cold again.
The List!
a segment for sensory exploration
5 things I’m looking at:
quilt mania… patterns, colours, videos of some elderly lady in Michigan who knows everything about quilts
the most perfect gifts, left by my bedside…. that fill my heart to the brim. <3 (thank you Sofia and Anatoly)
all shades of pink… I’ve been dyeing fabrics naturally with avocado pits and Cochineal bugs (sorry bugs)
7 chairs, in my peripheral vision, here in the recording room.
4 things I’ve been feeling:
like a baby dolphin after scrubbing myself with The Well’s arrangement of salts and scrubs and products galore
mentally strong?!
very silly today in this essay
a welcome surge of creative energy/ideas/life force
3 things I’ve been listening to:
a lot of Devendra Banhart. His music, his interviews. I love his approach to music and life.
Sofia’s spoken mantra, resonating through the walls of the bathroom
the Dragon Woman saying “Connect to source… and if you can’t do that, just sit still”
2 things to smell:
yesterday was an assault on the olfactory system in a great way… I riffed on this in the audio voiceover.
1 taste:
I made tacos this week.
Thanks for hanging out with me here, in this little corner of the ‘net! <3
Songs you heard in the Voiceover:
Intro: Journey into Satchidananda - Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders
Transition: Tapestry of an Asteroid - Sun Ra
Outro: - A Gentle Acaba (Vento Em Rosa) - Alabaster DePlume
Hi kiddo
One thing Papa use to say about his rig jammed. There’s not a swinging dick working here.
Luv ya
Nana
Rig hands