The Hot Pools…

Iceland is full of hot pools and little spots where you can explore the natural hot springs. Some of them are free and in nature, some have been commercialized and modernized into pools with showers, saunas, restaurants, etc. Let me share with you my experience with some of the modernized versions.

As an American woman, I consider myself a free body person, meaning, breastfeeding in public YAY! Nude sunbathing YAY again! But I didn’t realize how conservative I actually was until I went to Iceland.

The woman at the desk as we checked in told us we have to shower, without swimsuits, on all our parts with soap before putting on our suits. Of course I thought, yeah yeah yeah, let’s go lady.

So I take the girls (Savannah 11 and Cheetah 13) into the shower room and get our suits on. Now I haven’t seem my girls bodies naked in years. In the US, privacy is a thing and teenage girls want it. They don’t want you hugging them, fixing their hair and definitely not LOOKING at them in any way. If you try any of that crap, you will get the look of death or worse…. words like “ewwww Mom!” or “OK Boomer”. The swimming pools in the US have numerous changing stalls or shower stalls with doors or at least crappy shower curtains to keep all the embarrassing parts behind closed doors while you change. Apparently this cultural norm is not norm elsewhere.

We each grab our suits and go in search of a bathroom stall to change. The girls find their spots so I just change in the middle of empty changing room. I head into the shower room and notice on the ground there is a line noting the ‘Dry Area’… hmmm…. Future Erica problem. Moving on…

As I turn the corner, I am blasted by nakedness. They are everywhere, sagging, dripping, chatting about whatever in Icelandic, probably their kids latest diaper rash or their partners inability to load the dishwasher correctly. Naked ladies and children.

Now, a bit of cultural understanding about these pools. Each little neighborhood or community has a public hot pool. It’s a gathering spot for the community. During the day, a lot of the elderly and families with young kids are enjoying the relaxing pools. In the evening, I see a lot of couples or singles heading to the gym inside, then to the hot/cold pools after a workout. This is a true gathering place for the locals. The community spends a lot of monies to build these special places and keep them up! A 2021 report from Iceland Monitor reports: In the coming years, the City of Reykjavík plans to invest between seven and eight billion of ISK (up to USD 62 million; EUR 51 million) on the renovation on swimming pools, the building of new ones, and on the improvement of facilities for sea swimmers, mbl.is reports. That’s just in Reykjavik alone! In our travels through western and southern Iceland, every small community had a pool/gym facility open to the public. These facilities are immaculate. They are VERY clean. Not like our US public pools, which are often dilapidated and disgusting. I’ve seen used diapers on the floor, mold, bugs and unidentified mush (is that mud or poop, not going to find out) in the shower areas of US pools. You know what I mean… we build this infrastructure, then pay 15yo kids to maintain and run it, no wonder we have a problem. In Iceland, these people take their jobs and these facilities seriously. Obviously I didn’t want to be that person taking pictures of the shower areas (arrestable offence in Iceland) but they are clean and have a full-time attendant cleaning and overseeing all things in the shower/locker room area. Once Cheetah made the mistake of getting out of the shower after pool time, dripping wet and wrapped a towel around herself, she walked over the Dry Area threshhold to our locker and had the attendant actually following her wiping up her drips with a mop and asked her to go back to the wet area to dry off before coming into the dry area. They mean business and they follow the rules! She was very kind about it, but really?!?! Cheetah’s already at her locker and getting dried off, oh well, they both went back, Cheetah dripping and the attendant wiping up a long behind her to do the right thing. Honestly it was nice for me to NOT be the one asking them to follow the rules for once, someone else was also mothering them. Thank God!

So back to the shower/locker experience. I turned the corner and there were women blow-drying their hair, putting on makeup, chatting it up with friends while their children ran around their feet… all while completely naked. I was jealous of their inhibition. Just all out there, hanging out, literally. Dozens of naked humans. Oh so many fun bags, beaver tails, rolls, folds, bumps, crevasses, bellies and butts. Our bodies are weird, right? Like when I see so many bodies all at once, I start to realize how weird our bodies are. Honestly, glad I’m not in the men’s locker room. Then I start to understand how beautiful they are, amazing our bodies are. They make babies! They literally are the only human body that can create another human (with help from sperm)! 🤯 Truly a miracle that has ever happened! No wonder we have so many body issues in the states. We treat our bodies like they are supposed to be perfect. But I had 3 children grow inside and then come out of mine. One had to be cut out like carving a pumpkin. The beauty lies in all these imperfections, the stories about all the scars, bumps, sags, the rolls we’ve earned. I saw women proud of their bodies, okay with all their parts being openly on display. Wow, like wow. I’m so used to covering up, hiding, shameful of our bodies, that’s the way of the US of A!

So as I am probably, but trying not to, stare at all the nakedness around me, the attendant sees me in my suit and tells me to “Go back, take suit off, shower, then put suit on”. Oh shit, they are legit about these rules and the showering stuff. I turn around to see my daughters in their suits, eyes terrified, jaws open, with the ‘No Way Mom’ look on their faces. I could see their uncomfortableness. I felt it too. In college, as a soccer player, you would expect us to all shower after the game before we changed and headed home or off to celebrate with our families. Nope, I think I took about 5 showers in college with my team after a game. And that was only if we were getting right back on the bus to head home and we also showered with our sports bras and shorts on. That’s right, we wore clothes when showering. Looking back, how weird was that? But that’s what everyone else did, so as a young impressionable freshman on the team, that’s what I did. I do think a couple girls on the team did get naked, but I don’t remember who but I do remember thinking at the time… I am NOT doing that! Exposing all my stuff to anyone else, embarrassing. So we all just went home stinky or washed our sports bras and shorts while we showered. Another cultural thing where we are embarrased by our bodies for some reason. We’re taught (not in school, but inherently) that we’re not good enough, that our bodies are imperfect and should be hidden. No one should ever see the things, even going to the doctor is embarrassing. How many times have we showered and shaved before an OBGYN appointment, still to sit in that waiting room terrified of our bodies and any judgement that might exist. Hard to explain, but it exists for many of us. If you are not that woman, good for you! How did you conquer those fears?! I think the only time I didn’t care, or at least cared and then had to get over it was when a child was literally coming out of my body. There were so many people in the room, doctors, nurses, UofU students, pediatricians, etc. It was like they were selling tickets to my birth and it was more popular than the Eras Tour.

I am NOT prepared for this. I have not shaved, showered, gotten Botox or implants yet (do they do butt Botox?). I have so many things I don’t want my girls to see. I feel like it’s easier to be naked in front of complete strangers than our family members. I also didn’t want to see my girls naked. I was thinking about their privacy and embarrassment of seeing myself and their sister completely nude. Oh God, what am I going to do? Can I somehow trick the lady into thinking we already showered? There is literally a sign next to where we are standing that has a icon of a women soaping her head, pits, crotch and feet. No way we’re getting out of this, and the lady was still waiting…

My girls are rule followers, which is awesome, and they follow my lead, which can be good and bad. Good = wash your hands before you eat. Bad = hide the bag of Salt and Vinegar chips in your closet to eat when no one is looking. Good = speak up for yourself. Bad = procrastinating calling my family because a text is so much faster. But I’m also realizing in this moment, that we should NOT be ashamed of anything, of ourselves or our bodies. All this nakedness is the normal way. Just the normal… “I got some stuff over here, and it’s mine and normal. Please ignore the bumps, lumps, flab, beaver tails, hair and whatever else I’m carrying around and value me for just existing and surviving this craziness called life”. Even maybe sometimes enjoying it. I knew that if I took pride in my body for once, even if I didn’t believe it myself, my girls might follow my lead. They might feel okay with their body, maybe even awesome-ish about themselves. I decided I had to lead here, even if I didn’t believe in the awesomeness I was carrying around. I needed to fake it. Pretend that it is awesome and being naked is okay.

So I reluctantly and slowly stripped down, while the attendant pretended to squeegee the floor behind me to make sure I was following the rules. It took the girls a few seconds to figure out what I was doing. Off came the top and bottoms of my suit and as I shoved my clothes into the locker, I asked the girls to get naked so we could shower quickly. For a split second, I could see the terror, awareness and concern in their eyes. Like… WTF Mom, we’re doing what?!?! But they snapped out of it, took off their suits and quickly followed me into the shower room around the corner. The attendent still lingering nearby, we turned the corner to more naked bodies doing their thing. The shower room had no privacy, because why would it, naked is normal here. There were about a dozen shower heads around the tiled and well lit room. It was warm and bright in the nicely tiled and clean shower area. The showers had an abundance of soap dispensers at each shower. And just our luck, the shower area was fully in use too, of course we weren’t going to get through this without an audience. Dammit! Why can’t we just be alone the first time I’m exposing myself to my children?! There was nowhere to hide and we all continued to look confused and shocked.

There was a baby in a little bathtub sitting near her naked mom. There were a couple young (maybe 6yo) girls showering next to each other having a conversation and giggling, again, all naked. And then us weird Americans, embarrassed, shy and confused about what was happening. Each moment was terrifying and liberating at the same time. Like a nightmare and freedom with each scrub of our body. I’ve never showered so quickly in my life. Like I could have won the Olympic women’s showering competition. The speed at which I created foam for my head, spread it to all the parts that the placard required and started to rinse was incredible. I’m going to say 7 seconds, maybe 9. The girls followed my lead, jumping into a shower next to me, pumping their hands full of soap and starting to scrub. Everyone else seemed so relaxed and at ease. They were taking their time, shaving, reading instructions on their shampoo bottles, etc. I was in full “go fast and get outta here” mode! I realized I was not all calm and collected like I was needing to be for my girls. So I tried to slow down, breathe and scrub some more stuff so the girls could also catch up and relax. Everyone was really just enjoying a shower, it’s not something that needs rushing. As I started to slow down and relax, so did my girls. The attendant had vanished and we were just getting warm, relaxing and enjoying the hot water. I saw another woman who came in after us, start to put her suit on so we followed her lead. As we put our suits on, with our new found body-proudness we headed to grab our towels and out to the hot pools. Before we could exit the locker room, we made another fatal mistake…

Walking into the dry area while wet! THere was a line on the floor with some words on it, which were in Icelandic and hence we couldn’t read it. The attendant let us know, that was the dry area, we were wet and needed to stay in the wet area. I told the woman that we left our towels by the locker. She thought a second, looked slightly annoyed, slightly almost laughing and said “Go ahead”. She then proceeded to wipe/mop up behind me while I dripped the 3 feet into the dry area to get our towels and back to the wet area. I apologized profusely and said we are new here. She knew that, before we even started putting our suits on before showering. She didn’t need me to state the obvious. She smiled and told us to enjoy the pools. We quickly left the warmth and comfort of the women’s locker room, walking a bit more proud, a little triumphant and much more connected as humans.

Cheetah, Nans and Erica making a picnic lunch together on a stop at some hot springs.