Clean

to quote Jane's Addiction, "i was standin' in the shower thinking." showering has become the only time i am really alone with my thoughts; needless to say they tend to start somewhere and travel through time and often times end abruptly somewhere completely different when the water runs cold and reality hits me like a nuke. my recent trip along the hygiene express had me reflecting on the actual act of showering/bathing over the course of my life, how the art of getting "clean" mirrored the different stages and events that have transpired over the years. to be perfectly honest for most of my life cleanliness has been an afterthought or a reward for being so completely filthy i was offensive even to myself. i had numerous justifications for not showering...water conservation...water quality or pressure...time...sleep, i am sure there were more but those are the most memorable. i do however remember a time when showering was an everyday event, almost a necessity.

i was probably 14 or 15. my teenage years were mostly horrid with the exception of the months spent at summer camp; Appel Farm was like two months of Shangrila amidst ten months of hell, there i was surrounded by like-minded folks living the experience each day provided. at camp the teenage armor i wore daily at home was placed on a shelf and each day i felt truly free, cared for and valued by my peers. we lived in converted chicken coops, 8-10 girls per bunk...girls for the most part are concerned with physical cleanliness...i surrendered to the positive peer pressure. each year there always seemed to be the same catalyst for the bunk to become aflutter, the showering schedule. for whatever reason everyone wanted the mornings...it helps with waking up... to wash off nigh sweats brought on by the humid summer nights New Jersey offers as relief, the need to wash off the prior nights "date" and base jumping that adolescence affords. if you were the first or second in the shower (10 minute time limits) you were happy with hot water, third tepid at best, frigid by the fourth.

this particular summer i was fortunate to be bunking with my closest girlfriends, and wanting a morning shower and growing tired of the morning rotations and cold water Amy and i were lucky enough to stumble upon a "secret shower" with enough hot water to take 15 minute showers and shave our legs! it was located across the camp from our bunk in the conference rooms and would mean a groggy walk through the morning dew and waking at least half and hour before we normally would. we weighed our options and decided in favor of the excursion...memory fails me if we enlisted others or if it was just us. The walk there was quiet, the camp still under the spell of slumber, the mist rising through the rows of corn. in each of our possession was our bag of toiletries, towel and change of clothes...with the exception of the time we forgot our clothes and walked back towel clad much to the delight of the boys of bunk 13. for whatever reason after a week or so of our clandestine shower we were told it would have to end, much like that summer my return home ushered in the decline of my happy hygiene rituals.

as previously noted showering became more of a personal reward for most of my life, primarily an event (date...new lover...class), when i was in a new relationship i would scrub before and after coupling. if it lasted in would fall into a flippant routine of every few meetings or co-bathing encounters proved practical and fun. i suppose it could be over analysed as an act of self-deprecation and low self worth reflecting on my physical appearance. i rationalize this even now, i am a punker and most folks i knew were all pretty crusty so it went unnoticed.

i still enjoy being filthy from time to time, my hair so oily it stays in the ponytail even after it has been liberated from its elastic confines, when the water first hits it there is not immediate saturation. once it has been shampooed the feeling is incredible as if i had been baptized by bubbles and i feel exhilarated once more. i can not offer any self judgement, clean it seems, is quite subjective...on my cleanest days the filth seems to exist anyway despite my best efforts to prove otherwise...on my dirtiest i remember the joy i felt walking to the secret shower and crave the hot water. my happy medium is this, i meditate on the sound of the falling water and the moment of stillness i am privileged to know.