I love the thought of outdoor showers. Possibly, maybe, because it presupposes that you live in a place where the weather is nice enough to shower outside on a regular basis, and that you have enough distance from your neighbors to preserve at least a bit of your modesty, and that you actually live in a house, and ideally that you’d have a good reason for having an outdoor shower, such as washing off the salt and sand from the beach you were just surfing at. When I think of outdoor showers, I picture something like this:
One of my few complaints about living on a boat is that I don’t even have an indoor shower. Every morning I shuffle off to the facilities on shore and shower there. But that’s not very convienient. And lately it has been hot on the boat… really hot. I get up in the morning and check my thermometer (a gift from the Topnotch Resort and Spa in Vermont), and even at 7 am, it reads 90 degrees, and it gets hotter as the day wears on. I begin to sweat even as I climb down my companionway stairs after just returning from the showers, so, you wonder why you bother! Then, if I do any work on the boat, sanding, varnishing, or painting, I end up sopping wet.
So, at the end of the day, I treat myself to my very own solar-heated outdoor shower:
Also known as a garden hose. Oh, I don’t have the privacy I would prefer, and have to shower in my swim trunks. And I don’t want to soap up and foul the water around the marina. And I can’t control the temperature, but it works out pretty well all the same. You see, the water is fed to the docks through a large black water pipe, and as long as nobody has been out washing their boat all day, the water in the pipe gets pretty darn warm, giving you a comfortable water temperature without wasting gas or electricity! And, if I stand over my rose bush, then I’m recycling my grey water and keeping the landscaping healthy. How ‘green’ am I?!
One of my all time favourite things to do…second only to skinny dipping. The kid never escapes from this body!
LOL, agree on both counts
There have been occasions when I have just gone in – to a pool or the sea – fully clothed, because the temptation was too great and I could not resist… nor spend time worrying about whether to look for a swim-suit, or change, or just get undressed – that was far too complicated. I wasn’t wearing much anyway – a simple light summer dress – so I just went in. I have also resisted the temptation to run out of the rain, and just enjoyed being in the rain, getting wet, being washed by the Heavens! The ultimate must be skinny-dipping in the sea, in the rain!
To act impromptu is so satisfying, it makes me wonder how many other things we do or don’t do ‘in the moment’. We are held back by what we ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ do. How can we live authentically in such an inhibited mind-field?
I am enjoying your blog very much and will return to read more.
Namaste