When I realized that John was taking Walter out for his evening walk - to try out the new Gentle Leader - I took advantage of their absence by running a bath.
Sitting bolt upright, my legs extended the length of the oval tub, took me back to memories of the tub at Hightree where I lived from age 6 to 18. It’s hard to even consider it a bathtub, more like a shower with a high rim, one corner cut out for a seat. Certainly one could not lie down in it. After that horrible date with Michael Wellman in 1966 (I was sixteen), I sat in the tub and cried. I remember thinking, “I’m a slut now”. He had taken me to a “friend’s house” where no one was home. A guest house in the back yard had a radio and a mattress on the floor. Mike had brought beer.
I was a virgin who had dated one of his best friends, Bruce, for a year and a half. I had been in love with Bruce and we’d “fooled around” but not gone “all the way”. I was so naive. I thought by saying “stop” Mike would. But he didn’t. He ripped my brand new hip-hugger bell-bottoms. They were white with little olive green flowers.
When the awful experience was over he drove me home in his teeny Fiat. I went straight into the house, ran a bath, sat it in and cried. I didn’t tell anyone. I considered it my fault.
Two years later I was in love with Marc. I’d just started smoking pot and didn’t know my limits. My parents must have been out. Marc and I took a shower which should have been sexy and fun but I was overcome with emotion and stood under the running water sobbing. After he left, I called my sister’s friend Linda, who came over to console me. Thus began our tumultuous friendship.
In 1970, in San Francisco
In 1992, when I married John and moved in with him, the house had a big sunken shower. A few times I tried to plug up the drain and lie in an inch or two of water. One day the doorbell rang. It was the woman who had built the house, come to see how it was. I let her in and then said, “I just have to ask, why didn’t you include a bath tub?” She said, “Because we didn’t have children.” I found that so odd. But I know many women, including my own mother, who does not take baths.
When John and I built our house in 2000, I looked at various tubs. I wanted one in which I could lie as flat as possible and completely relax. I visited showrooms but most of the tubs were like the one we have now now where you’re supposed to sit up. Finally, online, I found a Kohler with a slanted back. I was debating between 5’6” or 6’ when Ed the Plumber called and said, “I need to pick up the tub tomorrow. You need to tell me which one you want tonight!” The tub had to be brought in through the window opening, before the windows were installed. Which did I want, 5’6” or 6’? I chose the six-foot cast iron tub.
It was too long. I should have gotten the 5’6” like Katherine has in NY. Still, I loved my big tub and the 2” green tiles I selected that John said looked like they came from a 1950s Russian hotel. I’d put my bath pillow behind my head and – in daylight - gaze out the window at the manzanita on the hill, the bright blue sky behind it. Closing my eyes, I’d let my arms relax and float. My entire body – organs, bones –became buoyant, nearly weightless.
Before John and Walter returned I shaved my legs and pumiced my feet, which I don’t like to do in the shower, teetering on one leg. I emerged from that bath relaxed and rejuvenated, filled with affection for my husband and dog who gave me the gift of time alone for that ancient, primal, sensual experience: a bath!
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