I was grieving in my dream when a pat on the shoulder woke me up
I was grieving in my dream when a pat on the shoulder woke me up. It was Halsa. “Time for the bathhouse,“ she said. “It’s almost dawn.”
I opened my eyes, and seeing the stars, remembered that I was sleeping on a balcony in the land of the Jinn. It was still dark, but the mountains to the east were picking up a faint pink and blue outline. The chilly morning breeze made me curl up tighter in my blanket.
“Enough sleeping,” said Halsa, trying to wrest my blanket away from me. “The Prophet, peace be upon him, always awoke before sunrise.” She labored to undo my clutches finger by finger. Finally I sat up puffy eyed, still brooding from my dream.
Walking ahead of us as we hiked up a steep alley, the server from the inn carried my bath supplies and clean clothes. The bathhouse was far upstream from the inn and got its water before the city could touch it.Shop for Bedding and Bath Products and Promotions at Target. Halsa had stubbed her toes on too many stones, so I was carrying her on my back. When we reached the bathhouse, I lowered her to the ground like a kneeling camel and let her dismount. I was glad to see that a few customers had arrived ahead of us. Having had no one but a child for company since my arrival, I looked forward to making small talk with fellow bathers who could tell me about their land from an adult point of view. But the bald and chubby old proprietor who greeted everyone at the bathhouse entrance led me to a private antechamber. He had seen that a servant was carrying my bath bundle and concluded that I was too wealthy for the public pool. Halsa said she would be wait for me in the lobby.
A strong smell of sandalwood emanated from the bathhouse proprietor. My nose could follow him down the hall even if there were no lights coming through the holes in the brick arches. When we reached the private bath chamber, my servant walked in ahead of me and spread a small rug on the marble platform of the dressing antechamber, stacking fresh towels next it. The colors of the rug stood out brilliantly in the light pouring through the thick glass ceiling tiles. Streaks of red and white swimming inside the blue marble walls added a sense spaciousness to the room’s cubic volume.
My servant unbundled clean clothes and laid them out next to the towels. Then he went inside the bath chamber where I heard him place my bath items in their proper places and splash hot water over the washing platform. He turned the steam valve fully open before he left.
I put on the wooden bathing sandals and entered the bath chamber, closing the white painted metal door behind me. Reclining on the washing platform,China glassware catalog and Glassware manufacturer directory. I watched the thickening fog slowly dull the colors on the tile work.,Welcome to TMJ-Bruxism-Guide.com. The tranquil echo of dripping condensation had a lazy rhythm with a calmly hypnotic effect. Playfully, I kept my hand an arm’s length in front of my face and waited until I could no longer make out five fingers.
As my vision clouded in the turbulent hot steam, breathing became effortless. It felt as though my lungs could inhale the air in the chamber in one large breath which I could exhale unhurriedly throughout the day like a summer’s breeze through a flower garden. Insights, fantasies and thoughts, taking advantage of the good weather, fluttered about like butterflies. The old wisdom is true, I thought: bathing is a kind of prayer. It occurred to me that I should not dally too long as Halsa was waiting for me. But that was the outside world trying to taint my perfect inner calm. I sidestepped the tension and was immediately rewarded with a sense of peace strengthening in me. Encouraged, I began to cleanse myself, layer after layer, of all the questions and concerns that were never mine. “What powers the light of the sun?” “How do birds fly?” “When will the world end?” I scrubbed my soul of what was never a real part of me, sensing that I would ultimately reach a pristine personal intuition buried beneath all the dirt of outer knowledge. This is a bathhouse, I thought. Wash it all away. No memories, no past lessons, no future plans. Rinse until there’s only the Mind: a present purified of the filth of time.
Still in my trance, I heard the chamber door open.,but this option was almost as appealing as passing the kidney stone again. A flesh colored shape approached. The masseur, I thought. I had not ordered a massage, but the proprietor was one to take initiatives. I lay down and rolled over for the rubdown, cradling my chin on the back of my arms. An unexpectedly soft touch felt out my ear. The ear seemed to me an odd place to start a massage, but in my becalmed state, I disposed of that tension too. Then the touch came back, this time covered with a soapy cloth intent on cleaning my ear, as though I were a child. Groggily, I opened my eyes, still with a trance like distance from the world. The face was in the fog, but the hand was not that of the masseur. It was a woman’s hand!
Bizarre that I did not leap up and scramble away screeching. Had I been drugged? Instead, my first reaction was to calmly tilt my head away and clear my throat. If this mom had mistakenly walked into the men’s section, the throat clearing would set her straight with minor fuss and screaming. After all the steam was thick enough to cloak our naked bodies from each other’s eyes. But the female figure grabbed my head between an armpit and a breast, restraining me with a powerful wrestling hold as she continuing the ear washing.
Suddenly the hypnotic trance snapped, tossing me harshly back into normalcy. Heart racing, muscles tightly spasmodic in alarm, I struggled in a panic to break free. “Ma’am, you have made a mistake!” I cried. “This is the men’s section of the bathhouse!”
I was grieving in my dream when a pat on the shoulder woke me up. It was Halsa. “Time for the bathhouse,“ she said. “It’s almost dawn.”
I opened my eyes, and seeing the stars, remembered that I was sleeping on a balcony in the land of the Jinn. It was still dark, but the mountains to the east were picking up a faint pink and blue outline. The chilly morning breeze made me curl up tighter in my blanket.
“Enough sleeping,” said Halsa, trying to wrest my blanket away from me. “The Prophet, peace be upon him, always awoke before sunrise.” She labored to undo my clutches finger by finger. Finally I sat up puffy eyed, still brooding from my dream.
Walking ahead of us as we hiked up a steep alley, the server from the inn carried my bath supplies and clean clothes. The bathhouse was far upstream from the inn and got its water before the city could touch it.Shop for Bedding and Bath Products and Promotions at Target. Halsa had stubbed her toes on too many stones, so I was carrying her on my back. When we reached the bathhouse, I lowered her to the ground like a kneeling camel and let her dismount. I was glad to see that a few customers had arrived ahead of us. Having had no one but a child for company since my arrival, I looked forward to making small talk with fellow bathers who could tell me about their land from an adult point of view. But the bald and chubby old proprietor who greeted everyone at the bathhouse entrance led me to a private antechamber. He had seen that a servant was carrying my bath bundle and concluded that I was too wealthy for the public pool. Halsa said she would be wait for me in the lobby.
A strong smell of sandalwood emanated from the bathhouse proprietor. My nose could follow him down the hall even if there were no lights coming through the holes in the brick arches. When we reached the private bath chamber, my servant walked in ahead of me and spread a small rug on the marble platform of the dressing antechamber, stacking fresh towels next it. The colors of the rug stood out brilliantly in the light pouring through the thick glass ceiling tiles. Streaks of red and white swimming inside the blue marble walls added a sense spaciousness to the room’s cubic volume.
My servant unbundled clean clothes and laid them out next to the towels. Then he went inside the bath chamber where I heard him place my bath items in their proper places and splash hot water over the washing platform. He turned the steam valve fully open before he left.
I put on the wooden bathing sandals and entered the bath chamber, closing the white painted metal door behind me. Reclining on the washing platform,China glassware catalog and Glassware manufacturer directory. I watched the thickening fog slowly dull the colors on the tile work.,Welcome to TMJ-Bruxism-Guide.com. The tranquil echo of dripping condensation had a lazy rhythm with a calmly hypnotic effect. Playfully, I kept my hand an arm’s length in front of my face and waited until I could no longer make out five fingers.
As my vision clouded in the turbulent hot steam, breathing became effortless. It felt as though my lungs could inhale the air in the chamber in one large breath which I could exhale unhurriedly throughout the day like a summer’s breeze through a flower garden. Insights, fantasies and thoughts, taking advantage of the good weather, fluttered about like butterflies. The old wisdom is true, I thought: bathing is a kind of prayer. It occurred to me that I should not dally too long as Halsa was waiting for me. But that was the outside world trying to taint my perfect inner calm. I sidestepped the tension and was immediately rewarded with a sense of peace strengthening in me. Encouraged, I began to cleanse myself, layer after layer, of all the questions and concerns that were never mine. “What powers the light of the sun?” “How do birds fly?” “When will the world end?” I scrubbed my soul of what was never a real part of me, sensing that I would ultimately reach a pristine personal intuition buried beneath all the dirt of outer knowledge. This is a bathhouse, I thought. Wash it all away. No memories, no past lessons, no future plans. Rinse until there’s only the Mind: a present purified of the filth of time.
Still in my trance, I heard the chamber door open.,but this option was almost as appealing as passing the kidney stone again. A flesh colored shape approached. The masseur, I thought. I had not ordered a massage, but the proprietor was one to take initiatives. I lay down and rolled over for the rubdown, cradling my chin on the back of my arms. An unexpectedly soft touch felt out my ear. The ear seemed to me an odd place to start a massage, but in my becalmed state, I disposed of that tension too. Then the touch came back, this time covered with a soapy cloth intent on cleaning my ear, as though I were a child. Groggily, I opened my eyes, still with a trance like distance from the world. The face was in the fog, but the hand was not that of the masseur. It was a woman’s hand!
Bizarre that I did not leap up and scramble away screeching. Had I been drugged? Instead, my first reaction was to calmly tilt my head away and clear my throat. If this mom had mistakenly walked into the men’s section, the throat clearing would set her straight with minor fuss and screaming. After all the steam was thick enough to cloak our naked bodies from each other’s eyes. But the female figure grabbed my head between an armpit and a breast, restraining me with a powerful wrestling hold as she continuing the ear washing.
Suddenly the hypnotic trance snapped, tossing me harshly back into normalcy. Heart racing, muscles tightly spasmodic in alarm, I struggled in a panic to break free. “Ma’am, you have made a mistake!” I cried. “This is the men’s section of the bathhouse!”
沒有留言:
張貼留言