Virginia Woolf

A Bathroom of One's Own

When Virginia Woolf wrote A Room of One's Own she probably intended it to be a home office as she believed that a woman needed a fixed income. She soon discovered, as you have, that this dream becomes just another room for children to hang in and to borrow from.

Her next One's Own Room was probably a bathroom; a soothing, scented, sensual, sane oasis that locks.

To ease stress and encourage creativity a bath must be a Zen-like experience, a special time, not the work day quickie splash, suds and rinse affair of 6:00 a.m.

Guidelines for a Stress Bath

1. Buy your personal lock for the bathroom door and place it up high out of the reach of little people. If they get locked in and the fire department must come to their aid you will never explain it to your mother. Why the need for a lock? If you don't you will have company; the dog who drinks from the toilet, the neighbour's child who has to go now etc.
   
2. Announce to all that your stress bath is about to take place. This is like last call in the bar. Go now or forever etc.
   
3. Remind the group that you will not talk to any one through the door. Children respond immediately to mommy behind a closed door by asking life altering questions through the wood. Bigger people pound on the door to proclaim "the door bell is ringing". Do they really expect you to run naked down the hall to answer it? Silence will work better than you might think. Children will not kill each other if you are not there to react; where's the fun? The more mature may figure out the front door situation on their own.
   
4. Take in your bath kit of good soaps, candles, a duck and a glass of wine. Not a full bottle! If you disappear into that room, lock the door and refuse to respond, they will call the firefighters on you and your stress level will reach a new high.
   
5. Light the candles before you disrobe. They provide a soothing glow and as a bonus you can "barely" see your body. A clearly inappropriate reaction that you can contemplate while soaking.
   
6. Do not read. Why do we try to relax with the most frightening and gross thrillers? The most terrifying book of all is the library hardback you drop in the water. For the uninitiated they instantly soak up a remarkable portion of the bath water and then start to swell. Think of the stress of trying to explain to the librarian. Maybe she is a devotee of Ms. Woolf.
   
7. Float physically and mentally allowing your brilliant mind to work without your interference. The duck is a floating muse and companion for your inner child. If you are dangerously stressed and the perky, self satisfied, beaky smile is intolerable you can hold the ducky under and decide if it will be allowed to pop back up before the bubbles stop.
   
8. After snuffing the candles and sliding on your robe emerge from your room in soothed and scented splendor.
   
   You will be ready for the "mommy guess what" and "I don't know how that happened". You are relaxed and your mind has switched back to its normal "the glass is half full" perspective until you notice that someone has knocked the glass onto the carpet.