A break from routine. I kept thinking about how ordinary cleansing the body had become, something we rush through, alone, without really being with ourselves. I wanted to find the space inside it. The place where water meets you, and nothing else is asked of you.

When I traveled to Japan, I ended my days immersing myself in an ofuro, the Japanese bath, deeper and hotter than what I knew. Something happened in that water, or something was finally allowed to. The Japanese have a word for it: Ma. The pause between things, honored rather than rushed through. I wanted to bring that home.

At first, I tried to import the minerals themselves, as if the minerals were the practice. They weren't. The onsen is the practice. The water is only what makes it possible to stay in it. Japan has spent centuries refining that understanding, holding the same intention in something as ordinary as bathing.

So I found a maker in Japan who understood what I was trying to do.