Civilized Easterners Warm to a Hot Tub

When our family moved here from the East 10 years ago my wife and I were determined not to “go Californian”--whatever that might mean. I suppose we’d seen too many Woody Allen movies, and had, ourselves, absorbed a bit of the Big Apple’s provincial overemphasis on the intellectual and cultural vs. the physical side of life.

Our two high school-age kids, however, had no such reservations. Son Eric discovered a professional skateboard park of assorted cement bowls in which to practice his jumps and spins. And then he bought a surfboard.

Turned out that his physical education class at school went to the beach every afternoon for its exercise. We didn’t know whether to throw up our hands in laughter or despair.

Daughter Eve soon succumbed to the California passion for wheels. Although her new school was no further away than the old, the idea of walking 15 blocks each way now seemed absurd. With her own money she bought a moped and, now as an adult, enjoys it still--along with her car.

Without quite realizing it, my wife and I found ourselves getting out of the house for much more exercise. How can you resist a warming sun almost every day? Our tennis improved, and we consoled ourselves for the high price we’d paid for California real estate. At least now we wouldn’t have the expense of renting indoor courts all winter.

The kids lobbied constantly for our own swimming pool, but we were adamant about that. Then how about a Jacuzzi? Absolutely not! We don’t need it, and anyway you know who would end up cleaning it and keeping the chemicals balanced. (Remember the dog you promised to walk every day?)

That was my excuse, anyway, but subconsciously I think we were still hard-core prejudiced against “indulging” the body. A hot tub seemed just too much of a surrender to hedonism, the California stereotype. It would probably rot our moral fiber, even if it didn’t soften our brains and prevent us from ever visiting a library again.

Then daughter Lisa came home from law school with husband-to-be David, both cramming 14 hours a day all summer for the bar exam. It seemed a terrible ordeal. What could we do to ease the strain? We bought a little kidney-shaped portable spa and put it out in the garden under the trees. At 2 a.m. we’d hear them happily splashing away--money well invested.

The kids moved out, and there we were, stuck with the greatest cliche of all. Well, what are you going to do? Slowly Marion and I began to admit that we rather liked getting in the tub. We do so almost every day now.

When I’ve scored well on the golf course or the tennis courts, it seems an appropriate way to celebrate. And when things have gone wrong it’s vastly comforting. The surging jets do wondrous things to weary muscles, and a spa is good medicine for the psyche too, I’ve discovered.

At night when the moon is full the garden is bathed in a kind of midsummer night’s magic. All kinds of fantasies seem possible. And when the moon is dark you can sit in the primordial warmth of the womb, studying the cosmic display in the blackened sky, pondering the Meaning of It All.

Jacuzzi time at night is not only filled with conjecture but conversation. With good friends sitting face to face, the crust of formality melts in the warmth and darkness; it is hard not to be real, to share the ideas and feelings that matter most.

I was trying to explain all this one evening to two old friends visiting from New York, but maybe I oversold. “Come on,” I said, “it’s part of the California experience.”