My bathroom is a small aquarium set sail. That's how it feels. Since I live in an attic, some of the ceiling space is squared off in interesting ways, lower at points which are dangerous to tall people. This being so, I've tacked good size swathes of cloth here and there. In the bathroom such cloth acts as a banner above a tiny rectangular window. The light which comes in is reflected through artificial ivy looped in clover shape. From there it bounces off the cloth's flowing design of rainbow-hued fish. This random school swims in cotton waters of indigo, a match for the mat over the shower curtains. Of these liners, one is solid black, and the other solid burgundy. They are ribbon-gathered at the center to spread out like a fan.
On the walls are a variety of things corresponding to the sea theme: a photo of Provincetown captured from the bay, a tiny mermaid pin doing a dance with a shell looking glass in her hands, an angel fish done in Junior High Ceramics, its glass now covered with iridescent metallic glaze. Lining the floor is another arrangement: fake elephant ears popping out of a tall jade bottle, an old clear glass jug which one might find in a sunken ship, a trapezoidal half gallon tank of greenery with a china sign in the middle which says, "gone fishing", and a circular basket of white wicker filled with stands of christmas holly. In the center rests a porcelain cherub, little fist to his chin looking out between the berries and leaves.
Directly under the sink, wedged next to the toilet, stands an old, shin-high, tree root.
What long ago tree is it the stump of, cast off to be found by me in the basement of this building where I now live? What impetuous current carried it in on a flood of excited air and up three flights? What secrets line its rugged grooves, its knots and hollows? A vanished kingdom of sea monkeys? A weathered time capsule blasted away by salt spray and sand?
Of course I have no idea. It is an object to simply marvel at and let one's fingers trace the
good textures of. It also stands as an indoor replica for so many of the trees I pass walking to work, the trees that are like prayers for each season, especially in spring when hopeful moss reappears. This keeping of the tree root is not exactly great Feng Shui, since that philosophy teaches dried out old things are stagnant and stymieing. Still, that is not something I sense about this tree root or about wood in general. Wood conducts, has resonance. The cortex of its trunk rings wells with ages of stories to tell.
One of the first things I did here before putting rugs down or bringing in any furniture, was to get lots of Murphy's oil soap and some shellac to buff up the floors. In the rooms they are blond oak, and up the stairs, mahogany dark with equally sepia toned cherry paneling. With that mixture of lemon and pine, it was like stirring spirits to a sheen, a homage for every fingertip and footfall which passed this way. Cleaning too is an inbred family trait, both my Mom and Grandmothers' thinking nothing of getting out the Spic ‘n Span to wash even walls and ceilings, a good thing, this, when one's ancestry is that of chain smoking tobacco puffers.
What better way to reward one's self afterwards than with the ritual of a long hot bath? (Unfortunately, where I live now the tub's not big enough for two, yet I have good memories of other such claw-footed gondolas afloat with lotus candles.) Indeed, daily ablutions, at least a good cold clean dipping of the face, as if with rain water or dew, I think, are essential to clearing the head, refreshing the gaze. I know certain Diva types would go so far as to entertain company from the bath, but mostly I think it's a vital place to re-gain one's center in absolute privacy.
What else could Rodin's " Thinker" so easily be sitting on?
Give him lotion for anointing. Give him some steam. Give him world enough and time to lay down his arms and his worries. Perhaps one's spirit has a right to such rites, and that brief space of guiltless hedonism will lead to a larger scope of altruism. Dear Presidents, Prime Ministers and those who advise you, consider your citizens, your peasants and soldiers, how many of them remain without basic clean running water even while your glasses are guaranteed microbe free?

Stephen Mead www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/s/stephenmead