1. The booze culture.
2. The time crunch culture.
3. The holistic culture.

Is my cocktail ready?

Those familiar with Darren Stevens and Bewitched, are familiar with the advertising executive cocktail hour.  The Martini Lunch.  Wife cooking dutifully in the kitchen, and then pouring a welcome home drink when hearing the ’68 Buick rumble up the driveway.  Then the one income booze culture gave way.

Gotta get there by six!

This culture sure bit us in the ass: busy professionals sneaking away from work to bang out a 40 minute sprint on the treadmill, then a quick stop to the grocery store for a roasted chicken all synchronized to be at Day Care by the 6 pm curfew so as not to be charged a late fee.  Many people have seized up, over maxed their Zanex or credit card or both.

A holistic culture on the rise.

Those who saw this coming got off the train and have committed themselves to a holistic lifestyle, one where checking out, smelling roses, chilling out are all virtuous choices vs. hippy lethargy.  Someone whacked the bees nest and people are flying around like crazy seeking their version of calm.  Starbucks drive through isn’t it. A blow up air plane pillow isn’t it.  Lavender soap isn’t it.

“Sauna will be ready by 4 pm”.  is it.

We sauna enthusiasts are easily amused.

• We smile when we see it snowing outside.
• We laugh between sauna rounds.
• We are happy just looking up at the moon.
• We like the base line in Elvis Costello’s “I don’t want to go to Chelsea.”

Chris at Saunascape provides a guide to sauna etiquette. These are public sauna tips: like sit on a towel, don’t spit on the rocks, and shower before entering sauna as “if you’ve been swimming, there is chlorine on your body that will volatilize in the sauna and can irritate everyone’s eyes and lungs who shares the sauna with you.”

All great tips.

However, with your own sauna you don’t need signs or a list of rules, it’s back to pioneer days.  As my then 10 year old son noted in his school report: “There are no rules to the sauna except no yelling, keep away from the stove and most importantly DON’T leave the door open. So that’s the end of my project hope you learned a lot.”

No rules.  Reason number 14 to get your own authentic Finnish sauna idling in your own backyard.

Living in the moment, being present in the “now” is philosophy well suited for the sauna experience:

In the hot room:

• Enjoying the hot room experience.
• Loyly: steam created from water being tossed on sauna rocks.
• The endorphin rush of sweat.

And then the cool down:

• The invigorating feel of a cold water plunge.
• That calming state of equilibrium sitting outside between rounds.
• Fresh air.

• Mountain climbing.
• Bicycling.
• Running.
• Soccer, Ice Hockey, heck, ALL sports!

Fall down?  Let in a goal?  Get tired?   You brush yourself off and move on.  Look ahead.  What’s next, what can we do next?  Who’se ready for another sauna round?  Hey, who took my spot on the bench!?

Life gets better when we move forward.

A car has a bigger windshield than a rear view mirror.  Where are you looking?

My Favorite Wood to Burn:

1. Birch – burns fairly fast, but hot.  BONUS:  birch bark is nature’s gasoline.
2. Red Oak – a great winter burning wood.  Long lasting, compact fire, clean hot burn.
3. Maple – not as intense as oak, yet similar properties.
4. 2nd LAST PLACE: Jack Pine – takes up space in the fire box and emits little in return.
5. 1st LAST PLACE: Wet wood, or unseasoned wood, or dried out lifeless wood.

What is your Favorite Wood to Burn in Sauna?:

We were back to Buffalo, NY and I found myself at his health club a couple days after his funeral.  I had been to the Aquatic & Fitness Center a few times before.  My Dad loved the facility and especially the sauna.  He’d tell me about his sauna sessions and how he enjoyed chatting with other folks during his sauna rounds.

Yea, it’s a health club sauna “Absolutely no spitting water or water on the sauna rocks at any time”.  Yet after the few days I had, it sure felt nice to experience some sauna therapy, with or without Loyly.  After round one, I slipped out the pool patio door for cool down.  The day was blustery, 40 mph winds, and there had been snow flurries in the air.  As I stood on the patio outside, I felt the stares of people sitting warmly in the hot tub inside as well as the ice cold wind chilling me down.

Round two started with a few others, but I soon found myself alone in the sauna.  We all know that sauna is a spiritual experience, and  though this may sound hokey, I started to hear my father’s voice within all this silence.  I heard him clearly, right there within these same cedar walls:

“ah, this feels nice, but my son has a sauna on an island in Northern Minnesota.  It’s wood burning and…..”He took great pride in my saunas.

I thought about him and I taking a sauna, how he’d be more of a “low bench Larry” and he’d screech like a child with any amount of cold water on his body.  I tried to teach him about the “rubber band theory” of temperature extremes.

But he liked sauna well enough.  And this was good enough for me.

It was a spiritual sauna that day.  Alone, hearing his voice.  Round three: instead of sitting quiet in the sauna, I turned to the guy sitting in the opposite corner, and what came out of my mouth was just what my Dad would ask: “So, think the Sabres can pull it off tonight?”

1. Authenticity wins over a latest craze.
2. We need a break from a mobile device, whether we realize it yet or not.
3. Driving: we all need to get away from insanity behind the wheel.
4. We love nature and will work hard to try to find it, even if it’s just looking up at the moon between sauna rounds.
5. Our parents took 2 week vacations, we strive to fit in two hours.
6. Beyond having a “Euro cool factor”, saunas outweigh hot tubs.
7. We will ‘staycation’ more and strive for simple, authentic ways to escape.
8. Rising property taxes force us to think about how we can better use our entire lots.
9. Like enjoying a good cup of coffee, we will seek out quality: authentic saunas will win out over health club saunas or infrared light bulb closets.
10. We will recognize that our best investment is in our health, tapping into the benefits of an authentic Finnish sauna.