I Found My Bliss - In The Bathtub

This is a bedtime story to help you sleep, to sleep easily and to sleep well. This is a bedtime story to make you smile. This is a bedtime story to remind you about the importance of gratitude and joy. Happy dreams.

Transcript

Welcome to this story.

We're here to help you get to sleep and keep you sleeping throughout the night.

Our hope is to entertain you,

To bring a smile to your face and to your heart.

We also want to reaffirm the power of mindfulness and peace of mind.

It's about the importance of finding joy and finding yourself.

This is a story that has a little fun with itself and we're hoping you will share in that fun.

But it's also a story to remind us that we find the things in our life that are important to us that make us feel grounded and centered and wonderfully whole.

Please settle in,

Get comfortable,

Pull the covers up,

Rest your head on the pillow,

Breathe in,

Breathe out.

Let's begin.

I found my bliss in the bathtub.

I'm a splish splash person.

I relish the warm envelope of water that embraces you in the bathtub.

I enjoy being able to put my head back,

Relax and wash away the day.

I like taking my time,

Me entering in my mind and humidifying at my own pace.

I understand the appeal of showers.

There is a functionality and practicality to stepping in,

Under and out.

How efficient.

How equally unimaginative and boring.

In the shower,

There is nothing to savor except getting the hell out from underneath 50 pounds per square inch of pulsating water.

The fact that showers are measured in psi as opposed to bubbles speaks volumes.

Baths were a way of life in our house.

There was a dangling thing above the tub that was occasionally used after my dad mowed the lawn in the relentless summer sun.

But other than that,

The showers were simply something other people took,

Mostly people we did not know.

So I grew up turning on the faucet,

Spreading out the bath mat and stepping gingerly into a steamy pool of water with welcome delight.

I kept this tradition up even after I moved out of my parents' house into a marriage and through the divorce that followed.

It wasn't until years later,

However,

That I discovered my understanding of the bath and its possibilities had been severely limited.

It started with a gift.

I can't remember if it was my birthday or Christmas or some other holiday.

I can't even remember who the gift giver was,

Although they will surely go to a special place.

But I remember the gift,

Or rather its life-altering implications.

I'm sure the packaging said something underwhelming,

Like bath set or bubble break,

And the presentation did not spark interest or inspiration.

I opened the present to discover bubble bath,

A bath bone,

Exfoliating lotion,

And glove and moisturizer.

Two of these I'd heard of.

The scent was lavender,

Which I associated with wrinkled aunts and my grandmother's underwear drawer.

Turns out I couldn't have been more wrong.

At the next bath,

I decided to try out my new gift set.

I filled the tub with steaming water and the most wonderful scent filled the room.

I smiled,

Bent down and breathed deeply.

Not my smartest move.

Inhaling bubbles is not generally recommended,

But it didn't matter.

I was happy and about to get happier.

I stepped into the tub and unwrapped the bath bomb.

This is never as easy as it sounds.

For many manufacturers,

I have since learned it is a point of honor to ensconce the baking soda essential oil blend in a plastic sheath that has no identifiable opening and the 10 style strength of tungsten.

I persisted.

The result was a round,

Heavenly little orb that exploded when it hit the water.

Gently,

Of course,

And with a color infusion that filled the tub with a lovely glow.

As with the bath bomb,

I had to read the instructions for the exfoliating lotion and glove.

Apparently,

We have dead skin that sticks to us like a June bug on a hairy leg.

The exfoliating duo will do away with it all.

You feel the resistance of the glove on your skin,

Perhaps even a snag or two.

Then you feel softness.

That was my first shrine.

That's the word a friend once used to describe my bathing ritual,

And it stopped.

Indeed,

When friends and family call,

They often ask them about to enter the shrine.

There is an unspoken apology to this question.

They really don't want to interrupt this special time.

Sacred may be too strong a word for my bath,

But it hits the mark.

I've come to realize this time I spent with bubbles,

Bombs and bath salts is as much about ritual and reverence as it is about self care and luxuriating.

I realized this one blissful Saturday night as I was about to lower myself into a meringue of eucalyptus suds,

And my husband strolled into the bathroom,

Lifted the toilet lid and got ready to whiz.

He won't do that again.

In the space between shock and despair and a few choice words,

I realized there is a rhythm to what happens between closed bathroom doors.

There is a pattern and a process.

Nothing is rushed.

There is a natural flow to the shrine.

There is room to inhale and time to exhale.

When that natural rhythm is interrupted,

I'm jolted.

Getting back to bliss becomes more difficult.

The rhythm has also gotten more complex and sophisticated over time.

Another friend once gave me a candle for Christmas,

A gift I appreciated,

But admitted to my husband that it was unlikely to use.

He suggested I use it in the shrine and all was forgiven.

When that candle burned down to a wax blob,

I mentioned to my father,

A flea market regular,

To pick me up a few more candles if he saw any on his weekly jaunt.

A great believer in quantity,

A belief he has passed on to his only child,

My father arrived home with two overstuffed bags of candle.

All sizes,

Shapes,

Scents,

All of me smiled.

Today,

A shrine includes 10 burning candles,

Five small,

Three medium,

Two large.

There is also a tea light candle that burns inside a Himalayan salt holder,

Another gift from a good friend.

I am blessed with friends who indulge my bathroom bliss.

In addition,

I discovered aromatherapy,

So there are now diffusers and candle tarts and there is music,

Most recently with the chirps and tweets of birds in the background.

My commitment to ritual and reverence hit home when my husband and I decided to do some redecorating.

The intent was to brighten and upgrade the kitchen and living room.

Somehow,

We found ourselves with a decorator in the bathroom.

She had ideas.

I love this woman.

The result,

Cabinets with inset lighting,

A reflective glass sink,

Heated flooring and a tub.

This is not an ordinary tub.

Who knew paradise came in porcelain?

The tub has jets that shoot heated streams of water at selected body parts.

LED lights infuse a delicate glow and there is a heated backrest for two,

Like anybody else is getting in this tub.

There is also an aromatherapy unit that sends little fragrant clouds aloft every 20 seconds.

Poof.

The bathroom and the tub in particular is an expense I no longer attempt to justify,

But I have spent some time trying to understand it.

Logically,

I know that self-care is important,

That taking time for oneself is time well spent.

I read the books,

Okay,

An article or two,

About the benefits of taking a breath,

Treating yourself and finding space from the pressures of daily life.

But that sounds clinical and what happens in the shrine is anything but.

It's about connection and distance.

It's about finding oneself and forgetting about the self for a few hours.

It's about feeling pampered and humbled.

The need to exit my universe and enter Nirvana has,

Admittedly,

Led to some unfortunate incidents.

There was the episode with the whizzing husband.

An apology later,

On his part,

Concluded that rather nicely.

However,

There was one night,

Lights low,

Candles lit,

Himalayan salt lamp,

Subtly emitting negative ions,

I turned on the tap,

Poured the juniper bubble bath and Epsom salts into the tub and waited to be enveloped in a fragrant mist.

And waited.

Finally,

I acknowledged to myself and the woman on the other end of the telephone line that I did not have hot water.

Altomare's message center assured me help was on the way.

I felt a nudge of joy.

That did not last.

The repair guy apparently wasn't ruining his Saturday night because some woman's bathwater wasn't hot.

But he eventually showed up.

But by now,

I'm in my pajamas,

Resigned and a little ticked.

Of course,

The fuel guy needed a part he didn't have in his truck.

So why bother having a truck?

I wondered.

Bottom line,

There would be no shrine until at least Monday.

I did not hide my disappointment,

But he did not hide his indifference.

He also noted I'd have to pay for the part in the emergency service call.

I noted that was part of the course.

Despite having a servant's maintenance contract to cover such contingencies as this,

Nothing has ever been covered except a furnace cleaning.

I suggested to Buddy,

Perhaps the company should simply call it a furnace cleaning charge.

I think he flipped me the bird on his way out.

Monday came,

Of course.

The water heater was fixed.

The bath was full of hot,

Inviting H2O.

I stepped in and inhaled a heartfelt whip of chamomile bergamot.

But I breathed in more than the latest release from Bath and Body Works.

I realized in that moment that my shrine,

Wrapped in relaxation and reverence,

Is really about gratitude.

It's about being thankful to be here and thankful to be.

Over the next few weeks and the candlelit shrines that followed,

I came to understand that gratitude isn't just about personally thankful and appreciative.

It's about extending that thanks to the world around you.

It's about grace.

I have taken that insight to heart.

I remind myself to smell the rosewater before I speak out,

To soak up the moment before rushing to the next task,

To turn off autopilot and turn on an aromatic awareness of what lies before.

And I have apologized to the man from Ultramar.

Happy dreams.