the perfect shower

Today might be the most beautiful morning I can remember here in New York in some time. Nothing has happened out of the ordinary, as I woke, showered, and came to work. But the weather outside—it is crisp and cool. The air soft. No, it isn’t the weather itself, but the way it touches on my memory.

This morning, as I showered, the bathroom door open, and all the house windows wide, the cool air from outside wafted in, moving the mist of the shower in settle random ways that only nature can achieve. As the hot water beat down on me, and the cool air dances across my naked flesh, memories stirred of San Francisco.

What was it? Eight years back I think. Staying at Brett’s house just off of Castro. His shower was hot, and there was a small window, cracked, where the cool air from outside came in, mingling with the hot water pouring down from overhead. What is it about the mixing of the elements that tantalizes? The air cool, the water warm, the porcelain beneath your feet solid. It’s perfect. Grounded and airy. My mind drifts.

San Fran isn’t the only time those elements have met and washed over me. I know of other memories, but they hesitate to come forward, instead letting me just relish in it. I know it might seem silly to write a journal entry about a good shower, but I can’t help but think it’s this kind of small stuff I haven’t been appreciating in my life.

That, and when memories stretch you backward across time, I can’t help but feel they do so for a reason. Eight years ago, I was such a different person, with such different perspectives, and still naïve in more ways that I can count. It was a lifetime ago. But one thing that hasn’t changed is that I’m a survivor. The pangs I suffer now can draw a parallel with the pains I suffered then, and be reminded, that I will get through this. These little trials are what life is made up of. They are part and parcel.

Last night, dinner with my best bud Victor at The Elephant in the East Village, Feist was playing overhead. And something in the song and in the air and in the meal hit me like a subtle wave of the lightest bricks. It was just one of those moments when you can’t wait to meet that new person who will make you believe in love again, even if only for a second. To go on that first date and reach out and touch fingertips or rub knees under the table. To get those texts and phone calls that you just can’t wait to answer. To be in bed with that person for the first time and be nervous be you actually care what’s going to happen and how nice it will be to wake up next to them in the morning. To have all that—HOPE. And it’s just amazing, the way it made me feel. So alive and scared (but not in the anxious way) and happy and giddy and horny and ready to just explode into a million little stars in the night sky.

And yeah, even though other stuff sucks right now, and things are confusing, and I worry that I’ll be alone when I’m eighty, it’s nice to have a reminder from the past that all this stuff is so transitory in the first place anyways. The only thing we can trust in is change and movement. Time doesn’t wait for us to make up our minds. So it’s better just to swim along with the current then try to stop and figure it out. And right now, I shouldn’t stop and try to sort it all out. I should just pick up my feet and let the river carry me where it will. And if something good comes along, I’ll plant my feet for a minute and just take it all in, and remember how great it is to have a nice hot shower in the cooling fall weather. The only thing that matters is now: this present moment.

-r