Cappuccino Thoughts 50: On the Shared Intimacy of the Russian Baths
Seeking solace at the sauna. There's also a holiday read and a painting not to be missed
Hello adored readers,
Apologies for the late post as I am recovering from a cross-country flight back home to San Francisco.
Wow, 50 newsletters! Can you believe it? I am saving the big look back for issue 52, a full year’s worth of caffeine and hot takes. In the meantime, what could be a better way to celebrate nearly 50 issues of Cappuccino Thoughts than upgrading to a paid subscription? (Note: I have no intention of ever putting Cap Thoughts behind a paywall, but a paid subscription is a lovely way to support the time that goes into this newsletter.)
Now let’s get into it.
Needing to be healed in mind and body after a week at work and in life that left me feeling like a bulldozer had somehow found its way onto 3rd Avenue, I sought solace at the sauna.
In the very unlikely case you haven’t already heard me discuss it, I majored in Russian Studies in college and was fortunate to spend two summers in Russia, first in St. Petersburg, then in Moscow. Although I grew up much closer to the WASPy side of my family, I have Slavic heritage and have always been fascinated by the culture. It must be something in the bones. I always feel extremely comfortable and comforted around this culture. When I had Covid last year at exactly this time, I called on the healing power of borscht (from the restaurant Veselka), downing bowls of it until I felt it seep into my bones and cure the ills.
So on Saturday morning, I dragged myself to the Russian-Turkish Baths in the East Village to be healed. I had brought my journal and my worn copy of Anna Karenina, hoping for a quiet space to read and reflect on the week and on the year. But I forgot a crucial feature of the banya: it is a communal space for social activity, not a hideaway for solitude. In Moscow, I would go to the baths every week with a group of other young women and we would eat pickles and hit ourselves with birch branches. (I have yet to be convinced of the medicinal properties, but it is tradition). More importantly, we would chat and gossip, the steam from the sauna opening up our pores and our minds.
It was similarly in a hammam in Morocco that I sat with a young woman I barely knew, and I walked out with a best friend, S. Stripped down to our skivvies and immersed in the waters, we were in an atmosphere at once vulnerable and cocooning.
There’s a shared intimacy in sitting in a crowded room sweating it all out together. On Saturday, I overheard one woman saying that in the first hour your body acclimates, in the second hour you sweat out all the toxins, and in the third hour you return to your body. (There was a 30 minute recommended limit, so I do wish her well.) At the baths in the East Village, people from every kind of culture came together and it occurred to me that every culture has some version of the bathhouse experience, whether it’s a banya, hammam, sweat lodge, or onsen. Sitting and just being in proximity to other people can do a lot of good, cutting across cultures.
On exiting the baths, I stopped at the restaurant for a plate of pelmeni and a glass of strong black tea. I thought about the highs and lows of this year and my hopes for the new year. And while the baths didn’t magically fix everything, I did walk out feeling a little lighter and finding my way back to myself.
Updates on the bag project
As Christmas is quickly upon us, it’s never too early to start thinking about birthday presents for all your favorite Capricorns and Aquarians in your life.
Look of the week
I am totally enraptured by this painting every time I see her at the Met. I am counting it as the look of the week because nothing could be more ethereal or entrancing as her orange sherbet-colored dress. I have always been fascinated by how artists capture the quality of sheer. I absolutely love her languid, nearly exhausted pose. From her flushed cheeks, it looks like she had a day worth the turmoil.
I also just realized Flaming June does not belong permanently to the Met and she’ll be going back home to the Museo de Ponce in Puerto Rico come February. Do go pay her a visit before she returns.
What’s on the bedside table
Before he wrote the Madeline books (a classic), Ludwig Bemelmans wrote this slim novel about moonlighting as a waiter at the Hotel Splendide (a stand in for The Ritz) in 1920s New York. He is also a cartoonist and painted the murals on the walls of Bemelmans Bar in the Carlyle Hotel. (They must have been pretty pleased if they named the whole joint after him!). Hotel Splendide is a series of vignettes about the various characters who stay at the hotel and eat at the restaurant. As a child, I always dreamed of living in a hotel for just this reason—to always meet new people from around the world and have a constant set of characters for new shenanigans. This is a lighthearted read perfect for the glitz of holiday season. It would also make a good stocking stuffer for the aesthete in your life.
Thanks for reading Cappuccino Thoughts. If you want more where this came from, subscribe here.
This week I will be decking the halls and fa-la-la-ing. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours.