Lately, I've been letting myself go.
It's not that I'm lazy or lack self pride – I just don't like to shower every day.
And the reason is this: I love the extra light, audibly squeaky clean feeling of lathering up and rinsing off more than one layer of yesterday.
It's a feeling I wish I could bottle and sell but is so refreshingly easy to recreate – so I do.
Of course, I enjoy the unique perks associated with at-home work, so I live by no dress codes or real expectations of presentability. Some weeks, I do find my way to a daily shower, but somewhere in there I'll slip in an off day, just to grip my routine by the ears, shake it up a little, and really love my shower.
It's a lot like when white noise accumulates and blends into my consciousness: the refrigerator runs, computer fan spins, neighboring lawn mowers duel. Then, one by one, each noise shuts off. I reunite with silence and feel like I could roll around in it, it's that good.
Or like in our kitchen – we have a fairly small space, and our table hulks up a lot of the room. The past two weekends we've had visitors, so we kept in the extra leaf. When we finally took it out and reduced the table to its usual footprint, the kitchen felt blissfully large. I'm still noticing it every time I walk through the space.
I like conscious accumulation because the world seems so new when I finally wipe it away. [Hm…is this finally a philosophical reason to avoid cleaning the house?]
When I used to run regularly, I always said my favorite part was stopping. It's not that I disliked running. I simply relished in the bodily celebration I felt when I pushed hard and then returned to regular breathing and moving. Standing still never felt so good. By ramping up routine physical functions to a sometimes painful level, I could simply stop – turn it off – and experience I high I could create in no other way.
I miss that feeling.
I think I miss it enough to look for my running shoes this week and try them out around the block a couple times. Run – just so I can stop.
And maybe even shower.
[Side note: a million thanks to Cindy at Mitetees for creating my new header. Check out her stuff by clicking here]
