Three Months of Cold Showers

Now when I meet one of my students in the street, I ask them:
Have you done your physical exercise this morning?
Have you taken a [cold] shower?
Have you read anything today? Have you written anything?

(Khalil Sakakini trying to propagate his lifestyle, Sakakini Diaries, 1914)

I have taken up the Sakakini regime; I overdid the exercise (yoga), and had to stop it because of pain in a joint. But for the last three months I've kept taking a daily cold shower, first thing in the morning. True, I had little choice (I don't have hot water in the flat). But I soon embraced this way of waking up. In a time of confusion it gave me an anchoring point, a basic rhythm; it got me out of bed on days I saw no point in starting. This was a hard summer, and often, after nights of anguish and anger, the cold water would wash away the pain and bitterness, and help me smile, as I dried myself, shivering.

I kept it up even when I went away this summer, when I stayed at places that had hot water, I zealously opened the cold tap, put my head under the shower head, and waiting for the gush that would make my breathing stop for a couple of seconds. Then I would shake my limbs, then the world would sharpen, and the day begin. I took a cold shower this morning, in Jerusalem.

Yes I am in Jerusalem, for a few weeks, facing life and doing research. I will be blogging on my Jerusalem blog.