Cleanse encounters…
First, I rinse the bugs out. There is always at least one, a small, black blob in the basin, unsuccessful in its attempts to climb up the slippery sides of the cast iron tub. If a spider has gotten in, the blobs are multitudinous, their crunchy carcasses piled in the corner near the drain. Though I admire the spider’s work, it sadly washes down the drain with the rest; but first, it’s caught in the pond of water from the initial blast of the faucet, lingering in limbo, its limbs seeking purchase anywhere solid. Eventually, it gets sucked into the whirlpool, circling slowly, lazily, then gaining dizzying speed until the hydrated tornado sucks it down the drain, hopefully never to be seen again, especially not while my back is turned and I am rinsing my hair. I always feel guilty.
The tub is easily fifty years old, probably more. Its once pearly white patina is permanently etched with streaks of mineral deposits from the hard waters of coastal Maine. It looks dirty. It is clean. There is no fan, the moisture is drawn out of the open window, causing the nylon shower curtain covering it to blow open and stick to my wet arm. I shiver, whether from the chilly air blasting through the window or the feeling of the curtain against my arm, I don’t know. At some point in its history, the tub received a new surround, the white plastic only calling more attention to its discolored depths.
I run out of hot water before I finish shaving my legs, the curse of shampooing and conditioning thick hair with low water pressure. The tracks for the heavy, mottled glass doors are getting rusty and full of gunk. The door skips and tips, wedging itself at awkward angles rather than sliding open. I shimmy it wide enough to accommodate my sideways shape, squeeze through and step onto the linoleum floor, it’s pattern like tiny crushed glass mosaic, same as the one my grandparents had somewhere in their house when I was a kid. Aqua tile climbs halfway up the walls, contrasting the yellow paint it meets there and the fleshy-pink colored laminate countertop surrounding the sink. A tile has fallen off behind the toilet, the pattern left by the grout mimicking the waves crashing loudly outside. I shake my towel, one roly-poly falls to the floor. I shake it again, then wrap it around my goose bumped torso. Retrieving my dirty clothes from the floor, a tarantula is terrified into a corner retreat. Not a tarantula, really, we don’t have those in Maine, but this quarter-sized spider must be a close relative. Still feeling guilty about the first spider, I let this one go, cataloguing its location so I’ll be in readiness on my next foray into the porcelain powder room. This is vacation, and my day has begun.