My house is kind of funny. There’s two bathrooms and it’s kind of weird because the front bathroom is, well, near the front of the house. From the outside, you see a great big window and what’s great about that, is that the house looks like a regular house with a regular big window. But from the inside, what you learn is that this great big window is not a room with a couch. It’s a place with a bathtub. The room is so generous in size, there’s a place for Grandmother’s Rocking Chair.
The rocking chair and tub combined, create an interesting concept for a bathroom. The toilet, tucked away on the far side of the cabinet creates an appropriate and comfortable distance from where one “does their business” and where one bathes. The lovely thing about a chair near the tub is that it invites company into the space where you might be naked. And for the person in the chair, it is nice to sit in that space between a big sunny window and the bear skin of someone you love. For the person in the tub, you are sitting, soaking and alone while having company. You are alone in your skin and witnessed, seen, loved but mostly not lonely, because you can see that chair there, beside the window to the world beyond- a garden of flowers and bees and butterflies. And empty or filled, that rocking chair reminds you of loved ones. (Especially when there is in fact someone right there!)
Tonight I emptied my front bathroom completely. I think not just about the personal and intimate times here with my family. I think about all of the women who shared my bathroom with me. I’ve had many a girlfriend accept my offer to come take a tub. (Because sadly, a tub is a luxury that not all renters can know, especially if they’re on a budget or have small children.)
To my mama friend whose newborn daughter was shared between us one afternoon. To my mama friend who was off duty but had gotten sick because she was workin’ over time to mend her daughter. To my younger sister friend who has been plagued by Alcoholism and needed a friend to try to keep her away from her illness at Christmas time. To the few who accepted my offers for foot baths and sat with their feet soaking in blessed water and “in love” roses.
Sadly, I give my front bathroom a farewell. And I remember as I putter, “Little Mice and Rats and whatever creatures live around these walls, get ready, get ready! Run for your lives! The structure of here will be changing!” I sang and called so they may get ready and beware. And I note, I ought get extra traps and take care to protect other spaces.
The house is already rearranging! The closets barfed days ago and now empty, we say goodbye to them too. All of this. And I have no say. Only, I have my heart to note all I have seen, loved and embraced. I plant my good feelings, of love and treasures and I let myself know, that though they have comforted me richly in private, my feelings now find comfort being heard.
I say to this front bathroom Thank you. I have loved it.
Even if I cannot trust what is coming and unknown, I will love what I have known.
