At home I’ve been showering sometimes twice a day because it helps with the pain. Yesterday I opted not to use the shower at all because I got here after sunset. The retreat leader let us use her bathroom before she showed us all to our separate cabins. Once I was safe inside my space, there was no way I was leaving, alone, in the dark, partially naked, to locate the public cleansing building.

I found it this morning in the daylight to use the sink and toilet before our activities. Now it’s been almost forty-eight hours since my skin has seen hot water. I’m gross. It’s time.

I’m in my white sneakers, carrying flip-flops and a shower caddy my mother insisted I bring, as I make my way down the trail that cuts along the outer ring of this valley. It’s lit with tiny lights every few feet along the ground.

The air is warm enough that I can get away with wearing a towel to minimize the number of items I’ll have to find a place for while I’m in there. I’ve inspected the showers. There’s one hook per stall. What’s anyone supposed to do with anything more than a towel when there’s only one hook?

My shoulders sag in relief when I push open the door and find the building entirely devoid of people. Hallelujah. I step onto the tiny black-and-white tiles that cover the floor and take two minutes to clean my sneakers off in the sink before turning toward the showers. There’s a handful of them along the wall. I shuffle into one of middle stalls and pull the thin white cloth curtain closed behind me. I hang my towel, find a dry place for my sneakers, and squat down to carefully arrange my soaps on the floor. Then I spin the dial all the way up.

An involuntarily noise of relief escapes my lips as the water warms and runs down my back. Soaks through my hair.

You know what I don’t hate—being clean. I love to be clean. It’s very hard to stay clean in a waterless cabin in the middle of the woods.

I bask in the heat longer than usual. Eventually someone else comes into the bathroom. They shower and get out of the shower, in the time that I’m still in the shower. Another shower starts.

When two people, presumably at the sinks, start talking, I decide it’s time to wrap things up. I’m too aware of their presence mere feet away to continue comfortably loitering naked under a meager stream of water behind this thin sheet of cloth. I reluctantly wind back the faucet.

“Looking forward to hearing your story,” I hear someone say as I towel off.