I woke up this morning with a sore lower back, a stuffy nose, and a throbbing headache to match all the other aches echoing throughout my body. Happy 2011; here's a cold or a flu or some other kind of malady to kick things off.
We had no cold medication left in our cupboards and no idea how to turn on the heat in our new place. Not that the loft was cold; I just felt cold.
So after breakfast, I decided to take a shower, something I have always enjoyed. I may be a slob in my every day life, unable to commit to a regimen of cleaning and housechores, but when it comes to personal hygiene, I am a dictator. I never miss a daily shower if I have any modicum of control over it.
One of the few times I've gone camping, I did not shower for two days, from Friday to Sunday. That's 48 hours of living in my own filthy skin. No sooner had I left the house did I begin to dread the lack of modern plumbing, a luxury I would return to 48 hours later. Forty. Eight. Hours.
On Saturday afternoon, I forewent sunscreen as I played in the Yuba River, figuring it was bad enough to not be able to shower, but to slather on some goopy, sticky lotion as well? No way. So I floated about freely and felt the warm spring sun on my shoulders. It was quite wonderful.
On Sunday evening, seconds after Sam and I dropped our bags to the floor, I was naked and prepping the shower. Once I stepped in, I felt like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone, the one where the hermit just wanted some silence so he could enjoy reading for the rest of his life without interruption. Some apocalypse hit the city, or the world, I don't remember. He was spared, but the rest of humanity had been wiped clean. So his wish was granted: just him, silence, and a world full of books waiting to be discovered. But no sooner did he begin to revel in his good fortunes did he drop and break his glasses. And of course, he was blind without them.
I had gotten so badly sunburnt that I could barely stand having the water hit me, much less at a temperature any higher than two clicks above lukewarm. I cringed at the sharpness of the cool water, cringed at the impact of every drop that hit my shoulders and back, cringed at the irony that all I had wanted that weekend was before me, and I was cringing at every aspect of it.
All that to say I love my showers. I know; I'm circuitous that way.
So this morning, I decided to really take time and feel the shower. I stood underneath the rainfall showerhead, closed my eyes, and tried to focus on what it felt like to have water hit my head, run down my face, pool against my crossed arms and my chest before trickling down to my toes. Generally, it was actually kind of uncomfortable. I felt unable to breath, for fear of inhaling the water through my nose or my mouth. I wondered if this is a fraction of what waterboarding feels like. I thought about the impending fever I was certain to develop given the way I felt. I thought about a showtune, the one where the woman tells her life story about her marriage and divorce, the career struggles of women in the 60s, dating the right and wrong kinds of men, and sitting at her bedroom window watching the lights of New Jersey in the evening. I thought that if I kept my eyes closed, I could be showering in New Jersey with the city waiting for me outside of my bathroom. Or I could be showering in my hotel room in Hawaii after a long day of swimming and beaching, or in New York, getting ready to see a show, or in Paris, practicing my French before heading out to the city that I had wanted to visit ever since I was 14.
I had more thoughts in the shower this morning than I usually do. In the end, though, my lower back still ached along with the rest of my body, and my nose was still stuffy, though it was debating whether to stay stuffed or begin to run.
However, my headache had mostly gone away, and that was something to be grateful for.
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