Morning Meditation on Damp Days, When the Walls Start to Sweat

This morning the patterned floor tiles in the living room were sweating again. Step on them barefoot and they are tacky, as if someone had mopped and forgotten to wring out the cloth. The bathroom mirror has a film over it; wipe it and a minute later it fogs again. Outside the window, the apartment block across the road is just a pale grey shape in the mist.

I am fifty-six, retired after thirty years of teaching literature, living on the third floor of an old state apartment block in Kim Liên, Hanoi. Every morning I sit for about fifteen minutes by the window, and have for almost two years. And every year, just after Tết, when the damp season they call nồm arrives, I start skipping. One morning, then two, then a whole week.

This year I tried to notice why. This piece is what I saw, and a few ways I am sitting through these wet mornings.

First, what this is not: it is not a tip sheet for beating the damp. I do not know how to make walls dry faster, and meditation cannot do that either. It is only about being able to sit still in a season when everything is sticky.

Nồm mornings: everything wet, and not a drop of rain

Six o'clock, I get up and go to the rattan chair by the window. The cushion is slightly damp. The armrest feels cool and a little tacky under my hand. I sit down, and the first thing my mind does is not notice the breath. It starts a list: the washing hung out on Monday still not dry, the wooden wardrobe smelling of mildew again, the pages of the books on the shelf gone soft and limp.

Three minutes in, I get up to mop the floor.

I thought it was the weather

At first I put it down to the weather making me sluggish. No rain and no sun, just heavy and dull, and a person goes heavy with it. Of course I could not sit still.

That sounded reasonable. But last winter was far colder, some mornings nine or ten degrees, and I still sat. In summer, in the thirties, sweat running down my back, I still sat. So the difficulty of nồm is not about discomfort. Nồm is hardly more uncomfortable than those two seasons.

Really, I was waiting

The difference is this. When it is cold there is a jumper. When it is hot there is a fan. I can do one thing and then sit, inside something that has been sorted out. Nồm cannot be sorted out. Mop the floor, and ten minutes later it is wet again. Close the windows and the room is stuffy; open them and the damp rolls in. Everything is left half done, and I am someone who cannot stand half done.

So I would get up to mop, to shut the windows, to turn the laundry, as though once all that was finished the morning would be clean enough to sit in. I was waiting for a dry morning. And nồm lasts for weeks. By the time the air turns crisp, the season is over.

This season seems to want to teach something very simple that took me years to hear: some things do not dry any faster because you are impatient.

Sitting with the damp, instead of waiting for it to go

Since the start of this month, I have changed the order. No mopping, no opening or closing windows before I sit. I sit straight away, in the damp as it is, and use the damp itself as the thing to notice.

A small caution for anyone else with tiled floors: on nồm mornings the floor is more slippery than you expect. Walk slowly, wear slippers with a grip, and get up from the chair gradually. Do not sit down on wet tiles; use a chair or a dry cushion.

Watching one droplet run its whole course

Watching the droplet is my favourite step. At this time of year the window of my room is fogged white every morning, and on that film droplets swell and then run down, leaving a clear streak behind them. I pick one and watch it go. Some run straight down to the frame in one go. Some get halfway, stop, and wait to grow heavier before moving on.

I do not know how to put it properly. Only that after watching a droplet move that slowly, I want to wipe the glass a little less.

The hand on the table is what keeps me there. Each time my mind starts reading out the list, laundry, wardrobe, books, I bring my attention back to where my palm meets the wood. Cool. Slightly sticky. Still there. That is how I come back inside myself without needing to close my eyes.

If you like sitting with sound as your anchor, the piece on listening to the sound of falling rain uses the same idea for mornings with real rain. Nồm has no rain to hear, but it has dripping water, and that works too.

The first time, and after a week

The first morning, I lasted seven minutes before getting up, because my slippers were soaked through. I was annoyed, and I noticed I was annoyed. Then I let it go and changed my slippers.

By around the fifth or sixth day it was a little different. The list of chores still came, every morning, almost in the same order: laundry first, then the wardrobe, then the books. But I started to see it arrive, instead of following it out of the chair. When the ten minutes were up, I still went and mopped. Only now I mopped after sitting, rather than instead of it.

On busy days, when I have to get to the market early or take my grandchild to school, I do just one thing: hand on the table, two long out-breaths. About ten seconds. In this season, that is enough to remind me I do not have to wait for dry weather.

Don't turn the sit into one more chore

On Saturday morning my husband came out and found me sitting in the middle of the living room with the floor wet:

"What are you sitting there for, with the floor like that, mop it first."

"I'll mop when I'm done."

"Wouldn't it be cleaner to mop first and then sit?"

He had a point. And it was exactly what I had done through every nồm season before. The easiest slip this time of year is making the sit a reward for finishing the cleaning: mop the floor, switch on the dehumidifier, shut the windows, turn the laundry, then sit. It is tempting because it sounds so orderly, so proper. A clean, dry space to meditate in properly.

But in nồm, the cleaning is never finished. So the sit never comes. Or it comes once I am tired, irritated that the floor is wet again, and I sit down only to keep thinking about the floor.

Instead, swap the order. Sit first, clean after. Or if you truly cannot sit in a damp room, dry just one small thing: wipe down the chair you sit on, that chair and nothing else. The piece on creating a small meditation corner at home has a similar idea, keeping one small corner, not the whole house.

My husband got used to it after that. Now when he passes in the morning he just asks: "Finished? If you're done, I'll mop."

If the damp season makes it harder to sit than usual

The first common reason: the room really is too stuffy. Some homes get so damp the walls run with water and the air feels thick. Sitting in that for ten minutes is not patience, it just adds discomfort. Move: sit by a window opened a crack, sit in the corridor, or switch to walking slowly around the house a few times, paying attention to each step on the slick floor.

The second reason: you are used to closing your eyes, and this season, with them closed, there is nothing in your head but the chore list. Try opening them. Nồm has more to look at than you would think: droplets on the glass, mist outside, a damp stain on the wall. The piece five senses, five minutes is one way to use your eyes and ears as an anchor, well suited to mornings when you do not want to close your eyes.

Some people simply cannot sit through this season, and do not need to force it. A season off and a return when the air turns dry loses nothing. Practice does not take attendance.

This morning, as I wrote these lines, the mist outside thinned a little. A few windows of the block across the road came into view, some with laundry hanging. Theirs probably is not dry either.

On the glass of my window, a droplet has just reached the frame. I watched it to the end, and only then got up to mop the floor.

This article was created with AI assistance.