2003-02-23 - 11:04 a.m.
BATH SALTS
It was the bath salts. It was something about the jar, the bow, and the blue bath salts. Standing there, about to pack the suitcase, I looked at the bath salts�and they looked different. At that moment, I realized. I put the bath salts back on the shelf and went looking for underwear. That moment was when I realized that I take bath salts more for the idea than for the reality. No more bath salts.
When my children were younger, I enjoyed the occasional overnight business trip. Saying to Mr. Philately, �I want to get away from all this responsibility--- the diapers, the bathing, the cooking, the dependency,� seemed frivolous. I felt like a slacker.
But if I had to go away overnight for my job, as I did approximately two or three times a year, I had to and that sense of having to go allowed me to enjoy it. I would eat at a restaurant, often while reading a novel, luxuriate in a hotel room, and, most important, get up, get dressed, and eat breakfast without having to solve anyone�s problems but mine. If the hotel had a continental breakfast, as many did, I didn�t even have to talk to anyone until I was ready.
And each time I would take the bath salts. I rarely actually took a bath with the bath salts. A few times, I filled the tub, put in the salts, and brought a book in there with me but the tubs usually were uncomfortable and I�d pop out almost as quickly as I popped in. Still, I brought the bath salts because the idea seemed soothing. The thought of a bath with no one coming into the bathroom or, if I locked it because Mr. Philately was in the house, no one pounding on the door or yelling through it, seemed appealing.
But this last trip, the one that lasted over the last three days, I didn�t bring the bath salts. I looked at them and the dream was gone. I remembered that I disliked baths. I remembered the discomfort of those tubs and how quickly the water became cold. I remember how any movement splashed my glasses and made reading impossible. And I didn�t pack the salts.
Maybe it�s because the children are older and not quite so dependent any more. Maybe it�s that teenagers are often at their own activities and I get more time alone in my own house. Maybe it�s that the company of teenagers, of generally good teenagers, has more easy companionship and, for me, more take with the give. Maybe it�s the knowledge that within the next three years Kat will be gone and, shortly thereafter, Day-Hay.
Whatever it is, the bath salts now stay home.
LAST YEAR: Teaching Teachers (Note: I was off at the same seminar at approximately the same time last year.)
LAST FIVE ENTRIES:
For This?
A League of Someone Else�s
Evita
Everything I Need to Know About Homeland Security I Learned at the Seton Camp-Out
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Copyright 2006 by Ellen |
