a bathroom of one's own (with apologies to V. Woolf)

I have a bathroom of my own. No one ever uses it but me. I have offered to Ben, to Julie, to Liz, to go ahead and use it, really, but they have all declined. Not that it is dirty or unattractive. Quite the contrary. It is a very pretty little bathroom. And, in point of fact, although it is very small, it is not the smallest bathroom we have ever had. In our house on Longford Avenue, I could stand in the middle of the room and touch all four walls. In my bathroom, I can only touch two of them. Still, it is very small. But since it is only for me, I don't really need it to be any bigger. And I assure you, it is very clean, most of the time. In fact, sometimes when I come in from working in the garden, I feel like I'm too dirty to use my bathroom, and have to use one of the other ones instead.

Ben painted the walls and the ceiling a pale blue that is one of the colors in the shower curtain we brought from the old house. I am very attached to that shower curtain with its soft shades of blue and green and violet. There is a snowy white valance at the window, and a white throw rug on the floor, which is hard to keep clean (in spite of my never wearing shoes in there) and gets thrown in the wash with the towels frequently. I have new light fixtures and the most elegant little medicine cabinet you have ever seen. Ben installed hooks on the door and a lovely glass shelf which holds beach memorabilia from summers gone by. A photo I took of Ben and the kids at the beach more than twenty years ago hangs above it. I prefer my bathrooms to have a cool, clean look, and this one does, with its pale blue and white color scheme.

What I like about my bathroom best of all, though, is that it's just for me. Only my stuff is in there. All the stuff in the medicine cabinet is mine. All the stuff under the sink is mine. All the stuff on the shiny glass shelf is mine. When I want to hang my hand washables up to dry, I don't even hesitate to hang them in my bathroom because they won't bother me - and who else is there to see them?

There are many things I like about this little house that Ben found for us here in Maryland, but one of my favorite things is definitely the smallest room in the house - my bathroom. And for that I say, thank you, Ben.