Last night I was brushing my teeth, getting ready for bed, and while I was brushing I studied the decor in our upstairs bathroom. We live in a 1941 colonial with three very tiny upstairs bedrooms and one small upstairs bathroom that I guess you could call Art Deco. It’s got yellow and black original tile and fixtures. The original owner’s son told me that not only did his whole family use the upstairs bathroom as the only bathroom back in the day, they also rented out the third bedroom to a government employee during World War II. Wow. That’s patriotism.
Anyway, getting back to the toothbrushing. A while back I seized on the Art Deco theme and framed some old sheet music from that period that was also in shades of yellow and black, and hung it on the walls of the bathroom. One I framed and hung up was from the 1943 movie Bathing Beauty.
Last night as I was brushing and studying Bathing Beauty (which I’ve never seen but I’m sure is delightful), an old memory came back to me of when Sarah was very small, a toddler, and she and I would bathe together. I would get in the tub first and Max would undress Sarah and then I would call out “All bathing beauties report to the bathtub!” and he would bring her in and place her with me, and she would be so happy and excited to be a bathing beauty and for our bath together.
It was a memory that I hadn’t recalled in years and it came back to me so sweetly and suddenly, how we used to bathe together in the tub and how she loved being bathing beauties together. I have to say the memory brought me a lot of pleasure to think about, and I went and asked Max if he remembered too and we talked about those times for a while. Perhaps this is a good sign that I am a little less depressed and can take some pleasure in good thoughts and memories right now.
The First Year Without Sarah 