A lengthy right leg angles elegantly from wispy pillows of bubbly foam. A razor, lightly-held, slaloms its way down a ski slope of svelte shape, the snowcream of shaving foam parting easily under its touch.
Yes, I remember that advertisement well. But was that not the last time I saw a bubblebath?
Cape Town, 2017. Looking, come Day Zero, to be the world’s first major metropole to have not a drop in the taps. Supply dams, its only source of water, stood at 19% of capacity, of which the bottom twelve percent was unpotably silty. Showers were indulgent, baths immoral. Not that any bather with self-respect would sit in four centimetres of water. “Bubblebath” disappeared from Capetonian vocabulary: they were for people who lived in another universe.
But that was five years ago. 2022 sees the dams well enough stocked with water, aquifers now accessible via boreholes and the city officials primed to prevent a potential Day Zero. And are people lingering in soft white blankets of foam as the bubbles whisper themselves into sweet nothings of creamy water? No, they are showering.
Showering holds all the aces. Saves water. Cascades continuously fresh water over your body. Invigorates. Leaves no grime. Wastes no time. Bathing guzzles water. Lies in its own dirt. Sends you to sleep. Turns you into a raisin. People commit suicide in baths. Against such evidence, how can anyone countenance the act of bathing?
I can. Biblical wisdom has it that the sun must not go down on your wrath; my wisdom has it that the day must not end without your bath. When you step into bath you step out of the world. Lie, let water and life settle. Circling thoughts dissipate, the mind stills in a liquid silence. Do as the water: reflect. The day past…understood. Add nothing to your bath; no bath respects an agenda. Trust in the water, your self, and time.
Who, in the incessant beat of a shower, can know the balm of a bath?
Photo by Karim Ghantous on Unsplash
