On ... Sauna Camaraderie
We often hear conversations around the importance, beauty and impact of female friendship - how its depth and nuance and many layers bring so many gifts.
I’m a seasoned advocate of female friendship - it’s genuinely been my lifeline.
But how often do we pay homage to the quiet, subtle, low maintenance friendships between men?
I’m a big sauna fan (as promised, I won’t be discussing health benefits here, but y’all know!). I often have big ideas about dropping into deep states of meditation in the sauna, but instead I get waylaid listening to people’s conversations, and yesterday - when I got a rare Saturday morning to myself and decided to have a swim and sauna - I realised that the sweet (often sport-related) conversations between men in saunas offer a moment of the Enchantment that this Substack series is all about - it’s another toast-dipped-in-coffee moment. (See my original post if this is making no sense to you.)
It started with two men - both Jewish, both probably in their late 50s or early 60s - asking each other about how their Passover seders were. “My ex invited me so I’d be able to be with my sons,” said one. The other, in a show of subtle support that is often the extent of what men who know each other but not too well are able to offer in a public sauna said, “That’s nice, mate. That’s lovely.” He nodded his head as he said it, as if to show just how lovely he thought it was. He was touched, but there was only so much emotion he’d display about it. They continued to talk briefly about the seders and their meagre attempts to observe the full eight days of the festival.
Inevitably, the next topic was football. “They’re gonna annihilate us today,” non-divorced man sad. “Who"?” asked the other. A pause, a nod of the head. “The ‘scum.’”
A fit-looking Indian man of around the same age - who, up until now had been sitting quietly in one corner - joined in the conversation. “Ah!” he said in a watered-down Indian accent, “I wouldn’t know about all this stress, supporting Chelsea.” They all started cackling like witches at the joke they all understood, with another two men then joining in, and they all proceeded to talk about football; two Jews, an Indian, a young mixed race man, and a very bulky, very bald, very white man with a cockney accent.
I couldn’t help but break into a smile. They probably barely knew I was there, but I took a moment to appreciate the gentle love men have for sports and how it unites them into conversation when perhaps it would otherwise not be as easy as it often is for women. (Please don’t make me do the whole thing where I state that I know it’s a generalisation and I know not all men love sports and not all women don’t find conversation easy, because I don’t want to.)
As I started this blog a few weeks ago, with a commitment to finding Enchantment in the everyday, in living it more, and in sharing it with you all, it’s been amazing how just that undemanding commitment has enabled me to look at these simple moments of understated joy - between people, in nature, with animals, and every other facet of life on Planet Earth - and bring me back to a place of Enchantment.
As I drank my coffee this morning (no Sunday morning sourdough to dip in it, unfortunately - it’s still Passover!), I thought about how beautiful life is; how we can choose to look at the world through the lens of the evening news - all grim and scary and hate-driven - or we can choose to put our conscious awareness on these moments of beauty that arise so often.
Who knew one of them would be in the sauna of the Village gym in Elstree.
May you find moments of joyful Enchantment that enrich your week,
Lauren♾️