The Pleasures of Cool Water

Hello friends. I am starting this new blog because I have lately been inspired to live more lightly on this earth and in a way that is more compassionate towards my fellow creatures (human and otherwise). Seriously guys, I hear "Man in the Mirror" and start choking up. It's pretty ridiculous but also feels awesome. For some reason, I got a burst of energy in this direction after seeing As You Like It performed at the American Players Theater (APT), and the name of this blog comes from that play. So far, each time that I try to do without a certain environment-harming convenience, out of the adversity of the experience I have reaped spiritual benefits from the most mundane things. I hope to use this blog to share the things I'm trying, to encourage myself to keep pushing myself to keep at it, and to reflect on the surprises I'm finding along the way. I hope my friends will add comments to give me advice and that we can learn from each other!

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So anyway, Mike and I have been seeing how long we can go without turning on the air conditioning. We've not turned it on yet this summer; we have just been leaving the windows open when it's not raining and using a box fan downstairs, and wearing little clothing. A tiny fan by my bedside helps keep me comfortable at night. (Mike claims he can feel the breeze from it; I don't see how this is possible but he seems to be doing ok.) We are lucky to live where we feel comfortable leaving those windows open all the time with just the screens on. I am also lucky that I am cold all the time so this isn't a huge sacrifice for me.

I'm not opposed to putting the thing on if we get really uncomfortable, but so far we've been (surprisingly) doing fine. One of the "sermons" I've gotten from this experiment so far has been the joy of really experiencing summer. Having the windows open all the time and relishing in high-70's temps and tropical-style humidity makes it unmistakable; winter is NOT HERE and this is DIFFERENT. I smell grass and plants and rain and cedar decking throughout the house, and I can hear our wind chimes. My chronically dry nose is happy as a clam without any treatment. And the other day I noticed my skin has been feeling incredibly moisturized and soft- I think it must be the humidity, since I'm not using any lotion and my skin is usually on the dry side. I've also found I have no problem with stopping the water in the shower while I'm lathering up- it's warm enough in the bathroom that I don't get chills.

On the downside, if there is anything stinky in the house (like a rotting onion not discovered for a week), there's nothing like high humidity and heat to make a bad smell worse. I also feel a little concerned about what the high humidity is going to do to the house long term (mold??).

Anyway, today I was covered in itchy mosquito bites, sweaty and a bit muddy from a bike ride home, and just generally grumpy- and the house was 81 degrees and humid as all get out. I thought about putting on the AC but was too lazy to do anything about it.

I first ran the two inches of cold water into the bathtub with the plan of rinsing my poor, hot, mosquito bitten feet and then putting them in socks to keep from scratching the bites. (I did do that later and it's very helpful.) But as the cool water flowed over my toes, I realized I had stumbled onto something wonderful.

I took a washcloth and started giving myself an old fashioned sponge bath. At first it was shockingly cold, the contrast between the cold washcloth and my warm skin, but soon enough either I cooled down or the water warmed up, and the washcloth just felt deliciously cool and refreshing. Through the bathroom window a fiery pink sunset blazed through steamy wisps of cloud, and filled the room with a soothing, otherworldly glow. Outside was quiet, I heard only a few bird calls and the tinkling wet sound of the water in the tub. After I was all clean I sat down in the tub, let my head sink back into the soft coolness, and marveled at how much pleasure there was to be had in two inches of cold bath water.

Lesson: Water cools you down and you don't have to go to the lake or the pool to experience it. You also don't need a lot of it.

Environmental Impact:

I know that when my heat and electric were on the same bill, I always paid a lot more in summer (with AC) than in winter (with heat) so I figure the energy savings are probably pretty substantial, especially the longer we are able to leave it off. I tried to do some research for this post and the best I could find was this highly suspect blog: http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.html, but apparently heating and cooling are a pretty huge part of household energy use, and we could be saving something like 3500 watts of electricity for every hour that we don't use the AC. By contrast, it appears that a box fan uses something like 100 watts. Nice.

Other Lessons Learned:

• To save your lintels from water, you need to be vigilant about closing the windows when leaving the house if rain may come while you're gone.
• For best results, throw the windows wide in the evening when it cools down outside and blast the fan at that time to bring in cool air. We should probably try closing the shades during the day to keep it cooler; for some reason I didn't think of that until just now even though I think I've read a million pamphlets that tell you to do that.
• I read somewhere that the main thing a fan does is make you feel cooler through the breeze, but it doesn't actually cool the air down much- so unless you have it right in front of an open window to pull in cool night air, it doesn't make sense to leave it on when you're not in the room to enjoy it. Good to know!
• Our cat is really cute when she is stretched out on her back to expose her belly to the fan breeze.