“There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.” -Sylvia Plath

I have always loved a hot bath. Even in the summer, I wait for the end of the day when I can slip into a steaming tub and wash away the day. Often I don’t even know how tightly I have held my back until I lean back in the hot water. My breathing slows and deepens and my thoughts slow to a crawl. All I can do is feel — my thinking self melts and reality readjusts.

I enjoy the activity of bathing for several reasons. Sometimes when I’ve had a really hard day or am feeling stressed about something, taking a bath helps to put those stresses aside, at least for a while. Bathing also helps me to sleep better, (which is probably why I fell asleep tonight after taking a bath). Most of all, bathing is as much a part of my daily ritual as is eating. If I had to go without one of these, it would probably be food because bathing nourishes me from the inside.

Of course, bathing is about cleansing oneself, not only cleansing the body, but cleansing the mind and spirit, as well. The process of soaking in a hot tub of steaming water is so soothing to me that every time I slip into the tub I am immersed in positivity. Also as a reader suggested… I need to write my quest earlier, before the bath fills my brain. I am sure that it was out of a hot tub that Pablo Picasso declared: “Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.”