In Praise of Nature's Toilet

 

 

Marcel Duchamp's famous "toilet as art" photographed by Alfred Stiegletz. Just as Duchamp challenged the notion of art, I challenge the notion of toilet. Is the indoor toilet partly responsible for our disregard for nature? Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

 

 

 

Japanese writer Junichiro Tanizaki in his famous essay In Praise of Shadows wrote some of the most evocative words ever written on the aesthetic joys of using the toilet. Singing the praises of a quiet outdoor toilet he calls it a place of "spiritual repose" and goes on to sing the praises of listening to the rain, contemplating the sky and greenery around him. Albeit, these words are about the bathroom on the grounds of a Japanese temple where everything is tuned to a Shinto or Buddhist appreciation of the natural, but it might be any space in nature.

When I read this, unlike many in our overly urbanized, sanitized, and indoor culture, I reminiced about exactly what he is describing. I wonder how many people have never pooped or peed during a quiet moment in nature and thus have no idea what he is talking about? It is something I like to do whenever I get the chance. In nature, the common act becomes a moment of contemplation and focus. Just like Tanizaki, I have had many moments of "spiritual repose" where I marveled how the light filtered through the leaves, enjoyed the way the frost stood up like little hairs on the grass, contemplated the sound of creaking trees in the depth of winter or the swaying grass on a fall day.

 In those moments when our bodies compel us to stop to evacuate waste, we are forced to slow down, quiet down, and enter a state of almost meditative contemplation where we SEE and FEEL the world around us in a way we didn't a moment before. I can fondly recall moments doing farm work, hiking, or hunting where the act brought a stop to everything and there was nothing to do but look around and listen. It is in these moments squatting or standing in a patch of trees or behind a tractor tire in the middle of a field that one notices the busy cacophony going on in the world around and the soil below. It is in those moments, that magical things one never noticed reveal themselves. 

In nature, the act is a form of connection in a very literal sense. It is a moment when we stop to give a part of ourselves back to the earth. A portion of the food that has fueled our bodies is given back in a moment when the cycle is renewed. Those nutrients may bring new life to that tiny spot of earth to which we too will one day return our whole body as nutrients for a new cycle. In nature, unlike inside a toilet, it is a moment of connection. 

 In North Dakota, we are spoiled by vast spaces and a dearth of bathrooms. If you grow up rural, you learn how to use nature’s toilet. Driving across the vast spaces of the Great Plains, it is not uncommon to come across someone who has their back to the road out of modesty, and waves with their one free hand as you pass. When I have lived in more urbanized places, there was a part of me that gnashed against the inability to pull over and pee, which though not codified into the North Dakota Century Code, is I believe an unalienable right. If thousands of cows can drop their load wherever, why not people?

 There seems to be a direct correlation between the amount of urbanization and the availability of bathrooms. There is nowhere where bathrooms are more rare than the skyscrapers of the urban jungle. Decades ago, when I worked for a year in downtown Minneapolis, I had strategic bathroom stops mapped out like places of rare treasure in a mental map long retired and overwritten by the ensuing years. Several years ago I remember a humorous moment stuck in Manhattan traffic when my copilot had to resort to a pop bottle. In the most urbanized place on the continent, there was no place to go. Had we been in North Dakota, we could have just pulled over and meditated on the sound of the wind and the call of the meadowlarks.

In the modern world, the bathroom is usually the smallest and ugliest room in the house or an often uncomfortable shared restroom in public spaces. In America, we oddly call the room with a toilet a "bathroom", much to the confusion of those from other countries who wonder why we want them to take a bath. Though a cursory search of unvetted sources I found numerous references to "bathroom" becoming a polite name for the space in the 19th century. More research is needed.

 

The indoor toilet doesn't lend itself to the contemplation or appreciation of much of anything. Thoughts that could be diverted by the buzzing of a bee, the movement of a beetle, the smell of a musty forest floor, or the fluttering of nearby leaves are instead forced to dwell on the act itself or one's thoughts with no escape from the corresponding fumes, both olfactory and psychological. Thoughts evinced by a smell or small creature are absent and epiphanies leading to new horizons never happen. Using the toilet in nature shifts one's mind away from the smelly act or one's inner struggles to a connection with the world around. I wonder if this seemingly simple act of not using nature's toilet is part of the larger story that has separated us from nature, contributing to our ecological crisis? Using a toilet in nature today is very rare and largely frowned upon since in a world of billions, nature is quickly despoiled by human waste. Still, maybe we need a sort of "temple" or natural space where one can go and contemplate nature the way our ancestors did since we started walking on two legs: by standing or squatting in a few brief moments as we stop to notice everything around us and give something back.