This Works for Me
The Revolutionary Power of a Midday Bath
A day bath? In this economy? Capitalism makes the idea appalling.
Here’s a mental exercise to try in these distressing, distractible times: Fill a bathtub with warm water. Take off your clothes. Step in. And, here’s the truly challenging part: Do it in the middle of the day.
Don’t bring a book, or candles, or wine, or an $8 bath bomb, or even music. Do not, under any circumstances, bring a phone.
How does it feel? Brazen, as though you’re getting away with something? It may feel like playing hooky, telling a lie, and wasting money, all at once. Until it doesn’t, and then it feels like permission.
The first time I took a bath in the middle of the day, I felt as though I was on my deathbed. Actually, I was fine. But the act of splaying prone in a vat of water in broad daylight on a perfectly nice day felt at first like a grotesque spectacle of lethargy, of helplessness, of weakness — something one should only do when very ill, or very old, or both.
When was the last time you lay very still in a small, warm body of water and stared at the ceiling?
