In pursuit of sweat
By Nina Moske
I long to sweat. Not the anxious, sporadic kind — no. I want full-body, hair-soaking, gritty sweat. I want flushed cheeks and shiny skin. I want to feel the sting in my eyes and taste the salt.
Growing up in New York City, perspiration was a gross inconvenience. My childhood passions lay indoors, in crafts and novels. Sweat, to me, meant speed-walking through city streets and riding subway cars without air conditioning in the summertime. My body was a vehicle that shuttled me from place to place and I often ignored its cues — thirst and hunger, soreness, pain.
In New York, sweat was not seasonal. The sticky stuff found its place in July and October, January and April. Summer in the city was oppressive. Some days were so muggy that sunscreen melted on contact with my skin and the metal bits on my Levi’s scalded me. I couldn’t help but think about all the rats and pigeons and overflowing trash bags sweating right alongside me. Winter, too, could feel stifling. I was raised in a pre-war apartment building where the heat turned on in November and could not be adjusted. Whether it was 10 degrees outside or 55, my bedroom baked through March.
Then I moved to college in North Carolina. The first month of school passed in a timeless haze and the air weighed heavy with nerves. It was hot, too — that’s August in the South.
Longing for a routine, I took up running as the days got shorter. What started as one mile quickly turned to three, five, ten and, some years later, a marathon. College demands a sort of mental looseness, an ability to move with the current of those around you. The heat was similar. Powerless against it, there wasn’t much to do but lean in.
Soon I craved the kind of full-body exertion that only a run can provide. My body buzzed without daily movement, the unused energy bouncing off my internal walls like a fly hitting a window, waiting to be released.
Sweat became a data point — tactile evidence of having moved. I took hot yoga classes and sought saunas, but nothing beat the bliss of returning from a long run, drenched and salty. It felt like a superpower.
And it is. Perspiration does so much more than we give it credit for. It keeps us cool and flushes harmful chemicals from our systems; it moisturizes our skin and increases circulation. Though many mammals sweat, humans are unique in the sheer number of sweat glands that mark our skin — almost 10 times the amount found on other primates’ bodies.
My new love swelled to obsession when I spent a summer working in Florida.
I had never felt air like it. The humidity soared over 90 percent before sunrise and the temperature followed suit. A step outside was a step into soupy dampness. On runs, sweat formed a slick second skin and dripped from every inch of me. Ocean dips offered little relief, as water in the Gulf of Mexico averaged 85º in July. But I savored it. My skin and hair, grateful for the mix of moisture and salt, glowed.
With each move south, I learned that sweat is as much an act of surrender as it is an act of control. What was once a byproduct of discomfort became a sign of hard-earned endurance. Sweat brings me into my body like nothing else can, insisting that I treat it with reverence rather than indifference.
When I ran after work in Florida, I struggled to avoid the endless clouds of tiny bugs that flew suspended in the sunlight. The creatures adhered to my sweat-sticky skin as I moved, and I’d return home with dozens of them plastered to my arms and chest. “Bug freckles,” my roommate called them. After my runs, I took to standing still under the A.C. vent in my hallway. I tried to notice each bead of sweat as cold air blew from above. On my forehead, collarbone, the tips of my fingers. One by one, as quickly as they came, evaporated.
