it's the little things

I loved my grandparents' little house on Shriver Avenue.  I loved it from the front entryway to the varnished, creaking, wooden steps that led to the big, bright basement.  I loved the portrait of my mother in her wedding dress that hung in the living room.   I loved to linger in the hall studying all the small photos of Aunt Helen's graduating class at her nursing school in Chicago.  I loved the small telephone nook in the hallway where they really did keep their telephone.  I loved my Aunt Joanne's flowery, feminine bedroom in the back of the house where the vanity skirt matched the window curtains. I loved my grandma's big, dark bedroom where she kept her treadle sewing machine.  I loved the basement where my grandpa's bed was tucked in a cozy corner, and where a swing hung from the rafters for us grandchildren.

It wasn't that my grandma's house was comfy and warm and welcoming; that was never the case.  I loved it there because it was clean and bright and it smelled good - all things that made it totally different from our house.   Everything had a place, and it was in that place, and that was oddly comforting to me.  I knew that even though months might go by between our visits, the bisque ladies with their frilly petticoats would still be standing atop the big radio in the living room, flanking the portrait of my grandma with her arms around my Aunt Joanne, her youngest (and favorite) daughter.

I knew, most importantly, that the bathroom would be clean and bright, and that the curtains on the bathroom window would be lightly starched, with their tiny pansies lined up in orderly rows.  Not to be indelicate, but many was the time I sat on the toilet there and just gazed at those curtains.  They were so unlike anything in my own home. I loved how the pansies were so neat and predictable in their little rows.  I loved the white shade on the window, its crocheted pull at the end of the cord the first I had ever seen.  It was cool and quiet in my grandma's bathroom, and I was always allowed to close the door - something that wasn't permitted at home.

I got to thinking about all this the other day when I was in my own little bathroom.  Oh, it's nothing like my grandma's, really, but it is clean and bright, although on hot summer days I prefer to keep it cool and dark. I don't have flowered curtains at my window, of course, but if I did, why, then it would be perfect.

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.