The Power of Peppermint
He Said:
Peppermint is powerful, use caution!
Eric was sick recently and wanted a hot bath. Per his request, I added some essential oil drops to the water. Let me stop and say, I have never purchased oils on my own—these were given to me. Personally, I think essential oils are a pyramid-scheme-cult, like Doterra, that convinces middle-aged women to become low-level drug dealing, minus the drugs.
Anyway, a few drops of water-and-oil later and the whole condo smelt like the inside of grandma’s church purse. I should remember water and oil don’t mix. But on the bright side, stuffed-up Eric could breathe again.
Pro-tip: don’t over to it and always use a carrier oil to dilute the oil. I wasn’t in the bath but Eric reported feeling tingly insert worry face emoji. But allegedly the bath worked and it was a ridiculous enough experience that we had to share it with you.
- Ricky G.
He Said:
You step into the warm water. It smells bright, like…Christmas. You see suds. It feels...good. Soothing.
Candlelight, quiet. You sink slowly, the water absorbing the ache of the day. The suds arrive at your chin, and you arrived fully in the experience.
It starts unassumingly, a small tickle creeping up the right side of your back.
“How much did you add?” you say, the question more of a notification.
The feeling of scraped snowballed hands under a lukewarm faucet. Of toes, dipped in lava. Of paper cuts and applied astringents. You tell yourself “I’m okay”. You hope it’s true.
As it fully envelopes you, your mind shifts from seeking past experience to seeking metaphor, as experience proves insufficient to comprehend the current experience. Toes, feet, legs, torso, fingers, palms, forearms, armpit, back. You struggle to understand because each time before, was a part in isolation, never the whole.
You step out, your skin alive. It has now developed its own respiratory system, and it breathes radiant energy. It’s now working on its vocal cords, as if it has a desire to sing. You know the song would be an opera, but it’s unclear if it would be out of joy, or necessity.
You stand—exposed—in a 75 degree arctic tundra with renewed vigor. You flash back to camp. To moments you swing the knob on the shower from hot past cold, to off. To the “polar plunges”. To the first 6:30am dive into calm early spring water.
You swathe yourself in blankets, checking after a minute that your skin is still there. It is. Phew.
You emerge, sometime later. You have a newfound appreciation for the world. You feel invigorated. A life that, for a moment, was to be taken has been suddenly gifted back. You glide through the house with a sense of urgency. Dishes washed, books organized, house tidy. Such small things come easily compared to facing the end.
You appreciate the unexpected encounter. Perhaps not with death, but his second cousin. Of that feeling of being alive. Of actually being alive; but, as with all such encounters, you won’t submit to it again—willingly.
That is a peppermint bath.
- Eric