On Saturday, Mark ate breakfast with me before heading to work, even lingering in deference to the weekend. A month earlier, I’d fled our apartment for two nights to call attention to my despair, but exactly nothing had changed. I wondered if our small life could be enough.
“How’d you find out about this sweat?” I fiddled with my seatbelt as Jan drove.
“My housemate.” Jan accelerated past a truck. “The mom’s group in her church. They had extra spots.”
We parked in front of a beige ranch-style, distinguished only by a small flag with an eagle feather. Come around back, a note said.
The church moms chatted with each other on the patio. They were in their thirties, a little older than us, gold bands on each ring finger, robust, leggy women like the kind I saw in the grocery store, their carts spilling over with vigorous produce and toddlers. Women who had their shit together.
A chain link fence separated the backyard from the neighbors, but instead of the expected playground set, the yard held the large, overturned basket of a sweat lodge frame. Scraps of heavy cloth covered the frame like a tired patchwork quilt, never beautiful, and now bedraggled from dirt, damp, and smoke.
A woman with long, steel-gray hair stood amidst the group. “Call me Bear.” She caught my eye. “We’ll make tobacco bundles as prayers to the guides and spirits.”
Undoctored tobacco smelled like a good oolong tea. We wrapped it in rounds of cotton cloth.
“As you wrap a pinch of tobacco, think of what you want out of the sweat. Maybe you have a question about your life.”
What should my prayer be? Answers seemed always out of reach. Will Mark ever love me the way I want him to? Should I leave? Bear’s invitation gave me permission to want more for myself, and I found I wasn’t as accepting of the status quo as I’d thought.
Did the spirit world even exist? I hoped so.
When we finished wrapping tobacco prayers, we grabbed our towels and walked down the slope toward the lodge. A girl emerged through the door flap.
“This is Panda,” Bear said, “my apprentice firekeeper. She’s been heating up the grandmother stones since yesterday. She’ll be in the sweat with you.” I felt sucker-punched. Bear could obviously be trusted to guide me through the heat and the spirit world. But a girl named Panda?
Bear continued, “You could bring your towel in, to sit on during the ceremony, but traditionally there would be nothing between you and Mother Earth’s skin.”
We disrobed beside the structure. I folded my clothes and left my towel on top. Most of the women kept theirs. I couldn’t understand why they’d come at all if they didn’t plan to do things right.
The floor of the lodge was covered in pea-sized pebbles that crunched beneath my bare feet. So much for Mother Earth’s skin. I wished I’d brought my towel.
Heat radiated from several large stones nestled in a shallow pit, Panda’s folded blanket nearby. I sat on top of the pebbles, my ankles crossed, knees up, the flesh over my sitz bones already wincing away from the hardness.
Sunlight created a nimbus behind each woman as she passed through the opening. When our row filled, more women made a row behind us. How was it that all of them somehow understood relationships well enough to be married, whereas Jan and I did not? Two rows behind me, Jan settled herself on her towel – far enough away she might as well not have been there.
Bear filled the doorway. “I’ll check in halfway through our time. Anyone who wants can leave then.” The shining afternoon disappeared behind the lowered door flap.
Panda ladled water and tipped it above the stones. Liquid struck the hot surface; steam plumed into the air.
How had I forgotten I loathed hot tubs and saunas?
Thick vapor pressed against me. Breathing was different under this dome.
“Let’s chant.” Panda scooped more water. “We’ll sing, to ask the ancestors and spirits to be with us.”
Usually I loved singing with others, but steam filled my throat and lungs like expanding foam. I hummed instead.
Panda intoned, “Mother-Father Spirit, accept our tobacco offerings and share your wisdom. May our humble requests be lifted with clouds of steam.” Another ladle of water sizzled on the stone. My sides pulsed like the gills of a beached fish.
“Pay attention,” Panda said. “Perhaps your guides will speak.”
I once dreamt I could breathe underwater. By moving incrementally, and inhaling with exquisite deliberateness, I was able to survive. I needed to breathe that way now. The trick was to breathe so gently it was almost not breathing.
Even my small, sipping breaths couldn’t rid me of the vapor’s pressure. It pushed against every square inch of exposed skin.
The near-hysteria in my throat was familiar. Every holiday of my teenage years, sitting in my grandparents’ overheated, postage-stamp-sized home, football game on the television, both table leaves and a card table to make enough space for all the people and their lifetimes of resentment and hurt. Grace must be said and food eaten and touchdowns roared over before there was even a chance of escape. I endured by folding into myself. Only my father had the power to release us, and only when he decided we’d stayed long enough to leave.
Bear lifted the door flap. A slice of the bright day entered on a ribbon of cool air. “We’re halfway, folks.”
Jan rose. “That’s enough for me.”
Bear nodded and asked, “Anyone else?” Jan crawled out, and the cloth lowered.
Was my friend brave or cowardly?
Did staying with Mark signal admirable devotion or spineless fear?
The women around me were clearly communicating up a storm with their gods. Sweat glistened on our skin, theirs the sweat of vibrant health. Mine oozed panic and fear.
I had trouble sleeping when Mark worked late. When this wakefulness became a torment, I counted. Not sheep, but numbers themselves. All I had to do was get myself from one moment to the next until my anxiety eased.
We had roughly seventy-five minutes to go. I would count to sixty, seventy-five times, and then I’d breathe pure air again. I was on my own, the spirits having clearly abandoned me, or never existing in the first place. I counted.
Panda spoke from behind a misty veil. “You all came today with a question on your mind or heart. Let’s share any insights, or visitations. We’ll start here.” She indicated the two women ahead of me.
Irritation flared. How could I keep counting if others were talking? Had I had questions? I didn’t want to become untethered from “one-two-three-four-” while I went in search of my questions.
Oh, yes, I had a question. It was about Mark, wasn’t it?
“A space of calm has opened up,” the first woman said.
Forty-five-forty-six-forty-seven…
The next woman said, “I felt a presence and she told me to keep moving in the direction I’m already headed.”
It was my turn. “I’ve learned so much about myself. I don’t really have words for it.”
Panda nodded sagely.
I began counting again. My father wasn’t here to make me stay, and yet, I didn’t leave. I wasn’t sure I knew how.
The church moms continued their litany of profound experiences and visitations, but who cared? I just had to get through this.
Panda repeatedly pummeled the stones with water. Waves of steam burst into the already saturated air.
Then Bear lifted the door flap.
Women near the opening gathered their towels and crawled into the light. Finally, I stood, hunched over, knees bent. The pebbles embedded in my butt clattered to the ground.
The church moms looked more serene than when we’d started, their skin rosy and glowing. The sun hung low in the sky, saturating the blue above. I felt leeched of color.
Had the spirits orchestrated this whole thing for me and I was just too dense to get their meaning? They could be enigmatic, I knew.
I was practiced at persevering beyond my despair, taking shallower and shallower breaths, collapsing myself smaller and smaller. Had the ancestors given me an opportunity to see, once again, how well I could endure something I wanted to run away from?
Or had they hoped this sweat lodge was finally my chance to hear my body howling, “Get out, get out!” Had they hoped that, this time, I would listen?
Image: Colourful sweat lodge with a wood fire blazing in front of it from Google images.
literally stories 
Engagingly descriptive – I could almost feel that steam filled atmosphere – and realistically ambiguous. No earth shattering Hollywoodish ending here and all the better for it.
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Thanks, Steven. So glad you found it engaging.
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This is a fascinating piece about something I knew absolutely nothing about (I had to Google ‘sweat lodge’). I liked this delve into a spiritual movement that is new to me and the kind of prosaic language gives this story an honesty and genuineness that works so well. I loved the descriptions of the heat and it’s impact on feeling – when I lived in Russia I used to go to the bath houses (banyas) and whilst there was nothing spiritual about them, the heat was often a major physical challenge!
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Paul, so glad I sent you to Google! Thanks so much for your response.
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Katrina
Her experience (or lack of) equals attending a church seeking the love of God and finding nothing. The desire was sincere but nothing reached back as she reached out. Of course she did not reach out about herself, she reached out about “Mark” who, as it looked, defined her.
Extremely interesting writing with a beautifully honest conclusion.
Leila
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Leila, I so enjoy hearing what someone’s takeaway is from one of my pieces. Many thanks for responding.
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So many of us are searching for something – or many somethings and we are so very concerned about the opinions of others that we are handicapped in the searches. The descrptive writing here was excellent and it was a really entertaining read. Thank you – Diane
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So delighted you were entertained, Diane. Many thanks.
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I loved the progression of the story, the pace felt just right. Her projections about everyone else’s life amplified her own insecurity. I enjoyed this piece. Holly
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Holly, I’m glad you enjoyed it. I enjoy your comment, highlighting how our imaginings about others often intensify our own insecurities.
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I loved this piece and the steady yet tense tone throughout. I’ll be thinking about the line “vigorous produce and toddlers” whenever I see produce and toddlers from now on!
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one of my favorite images too!
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Thanks so much, Kami Sahalie.
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wow, I got chills. This is such a beautiful and unique representation of an inner struggle that feels so familiar, silently shared by so many… and you found a way to show it. Brilliant!
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Thanks so much. 🙂
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This is wonderful and so beautifully written, raising questions rather than answering them, suggesting possible futures, leaving me to think about my own choices, my own doubts, my own possibilities. I love the underlying bedrock of optimism that shines through the worries and the fears… Thank you!
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Wow, thank you!
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I don’t know if anyone remember the “Iron John” craze several years ago. The narrator’s reactions reminded me. When I first heard about Iron John, I thought it was a crock, then read the book and crock was confirmed.
Pebbles embedded in my butt “Priceless”.
Is it that Mark does wrong, or that he doesn’t do right? I couldn’t tell.
If we were meant to have pebbles embedded in our butts, god would not have invented Lay-Z-Boys.
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I sure do remember Iron John!
And yes, a La-Z-Boy would have made for a somewhat more comfortable experience! Thanks for your comments.
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I love the subtle micro-emotions in this story, which did not go at all as I had anticipated it would, leaving me with a great sense of surprise. It was very true to life in the sense that looking for answers does not often produce them. Great writing full of stark visuals and tightly wrought physical descriptions. I mean, I could feel that pea gravel on my own behind.
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Thanks for the feedback. Of course now I’m curious which way you expected it to go. 🙂
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Love this! Grounded and evocative. Very true-to-life and goes places I didn’t expect.
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Thanks for the feedback!
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I always love your short stories, Katrina. You paint a whole world, a set of characters, and a pivotal journey in such a small number of words. I especially appreciate how you set the scene in the first paragraph with key details. And likening the waiting game in the sweat lodge to a long family holiday ordeal – so relatable! Beautiful, funny, poignant piece!
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Thanks so much for your feedback, Marie.
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Such dense writing Katrina! Beautifully spare. I can imagine the past and future scrolling out from this point, layered with revealed truths. Thanks for sharing!
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Thanks for the feedback, Jane.
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I loved this piece. The way it flowed, the reality of how a mind works, generating resentment, insecurity, doubt. And like everyone else said, the ending was so real. She wasn’t sure if she got what she wanted or needed. Very cool.
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Thanks for reading it, Moline, and for the feedback.
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Evocative surely is the word. I love your writing style where I feel pulled into your words and need to keep reading so that things unfurl themselves. I’m not great at describing my reading experiences as eloquently as others do but I can say that I love this and I love you. Thanks for writing things I get to read!
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Thanks so much for reading and responding. It’s great to hear what you thought. 🙂 ❤
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Good ending, it’s all about leaving….people have actually passed out or even passed away in those sweat lodges. I like the description of the church moms and the MC’s thought process during the group experience.
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Thanks – and yes, those sweat lodges have been deadly for some people. Glad it wasn’t a tragic experience.
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Katrina, this is a thoughtful piece, totally alien to my own life’s experiences. As with every story appearing in Literally Stories, it is well-written and intriguing. One can almost feel the pebbles disengaging from her skin and plummeting to the surface of the sweat. The MC’s misgivings and doubts, in contrast to the equanimity of the “church moms,” who seem so profitably engaged in the episode, is pronounced. But, before I knew it, the story was over and I wanted to know more! Thanks for making it available to readers.
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Thanks so much for reading and for taking the time to respond.
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Katrina, your story kept me “right there”. I don’t know if it was the the magic of your language or the intensely grounded nature established by having a casual, down-to-earth observation (about the moms) sitting right next to a potentially life altering observation or question (her relationship). But it kept me deeply in the story. And like all really good writing, it quickly had me substituting my personal questions for the narrator’s questions to self (and sweating a bit too).
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Susan, thanks so much for reading and for your thoughts. So fun to read, as always – and how great to learn about your WordPress page for your painting!
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you had me at vigorous vegetables:)
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Ha! Thanks for reading it, Brooke. 🙂
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Hi Katrina,
The old looking for answers that we all consider from time to time is always interesting to read about.
I wonder if seeking an answer is more about avoiding what you already know?
This is brilliantly written. The description attacks all the readers senses.
I think the first time I read of this sort of activity was in Stephen King’s ‘It’. That was when the kids saw what it was and how it had been there to mould the town.
You intermingled her questions or revelations with the actualities superbly!!
All the very best.
Hugh
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Thanks so much. And of course I loved your question: “I wonder if seeking an answer is more about avoiding what you already know?” Because I think that’s right. We often know, but don’t like what we know because we fear acting on it will painfully dash our hopes. I appreciate your comments.
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Ooh Katrina! I really love this story. And congratulations for having it out in the world where everyone can enjoy it! Your images are so precise and evocative (the steam filling her throat and lungs like expanding foam, her sides pulsing like the gills of a beached fish); they perfectly capture the oppressive atmosphere and make the reader feel something visceral. My fellow commenters have said it already, but the ambiguity is beautifully relatable and gratifying, even as you long to know “what happened” with the narrator in the end. I want to read everything you write! Soooo good.Your fan,
Tanja
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