Shower

In the morning, many college students take part in a purification ritual called a shower. We walk down the hall to the bathroom, carrying a plastic caddy that contains our soap and shampoo, our conditioner and any other oils, lotions or potions we expect to apply to our bodies. We often carry a washcloth, and we definitely bring a towel to dry our bodies before we dress. If we're lucky, there's a shower open, and we set our supplies down on a bench. We hang up our robe, strip our remaining clothes, and step into the shower itself, a tall box approximately three feet square with a faucet located too high or too low for our particular height. We draw a plastic curtain over the proceedings, and we turn on the water.

When we turn the faucet in the shower, we don't think much about it. It seems almost mechanical. But it's also organic, and it's complex. In Northfield , water is drawn from the Jordan Aquifer. It's pumped to a purification plant, where it's treated with chlorine and other chemicals. From the purification plant, the water is pumped to the top of three water towers on Manitou Heights , where it pressures all the water in the municipal system. In a hydraulic civilization, this water goes where we want it to.

One of the places we want water is in the shower. Early in the morning, as we're trying to wake up, a shower is a stimulant. Later in the day, after a run or a game of basketball, it's a relaxant. In either case, a shower is a way of washing the body-not just to get rid of dirt, but to achieve a state of mind that that's comforting and comfortable.

A shower is one ritual of an American cult of cleanliness. It's our daily baptism, initiating us into a sect of sanitation. Dirt is evil in America , and so we ritually cleanse our soles-and the rest of our bodies too. Free from the sins of stickiness and smelliness, we can go about the other routines of our day.

If college showers were only about cleanliness, they'd be a lot different than they are. If we only wanted to clean our bodies, we could do it quickly and efficiently in a few minutes. But a shower is often more than a mere necessity. A long shower, especially, is a luxury. And a long, hot shower is nirvana. The water streaming over your skin, massaging the muscles beneath the surface, is a sheer delight. The sound of constant flow is soothing in a weird way, like the gurgling of a creek. And the steam heat penetrates our pores, comforting us with wondrous warmth.

We bathe not just physically, but also psychologically. When we're dirty, we tell ourselves we need a shower. When we're tired or stressed, when we've worked hard, when we need a break, we tell ourselves we deserve a long shower. The shower is a place where we get to take care of ourselves, instead of our friends or parents or professors. It's liquid selfishness. And the water flows.

A long shower, too, is a counterpoint to a culture of speed and efficiency. When we get into the shower, we get out of the everyday world, with its angst and alienation. The water washes off dirt and sweat and grime, but it also rinses off the demands of daily life. In the shower, we're in a free space. And as we linger in the liquid tranquilizer, we're not quick and we're not efficient. In a small way, then, a shower is a protest movement-a way of using the resources of a capitalist society to escape it momentarily.

We understand a shower in terms of its function, but we seldom think about how it functions in the larger moral ecology. Looking analytically, a shower is one way of transforming tap water into waste water. It's a way of adding chemicals from soap and shampoo to drinking water. It's a way of draining aquifers into the ocean. It's a way of converting freshwater into saltwater.

In the shower, too, we can get in hot water when we forget where the hot water comes from. Warm water comes from water heaters, most of which require the combustion of fossil fuels, and which therefore fuel global warming as well as water warming.

So we shower ourselves with hot water, but we also shower ourselves with cultural assumptions, one of which is that nature can be converted to our comfort. In this culture, we shower ourselves with nature.