Sunday, September 3, 2017

#ParkTV As I see Things (Five) Glug, glug, glug

Pictured below are #Atticfinds (soap)

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What makes me a submerging writer? 

 I will use the metaphor of my upstairs bathroom to explain how I am a submerging writer because my writing brings me joy and stress and so does that amazing yet ridiculous room. Since we bought our Victorian home, I have wanted install an antique cast iron tub because I felt like the house would be perfect with it. I pictured myself resting my neck against the rim while staring at a candle across the room, the bubbles and warm water soothing my tired muscles.

About seven years ago, I purchased a claw foot for $50, but had to bring it to my classroom where it could be used by kindergartners as a reading nook because there was no room for it in our bathroom. 

Yes, I purchase things on a whim sometimes… don’t we all? It was a good deal.

The tub went directly to my classroom until two years ago when I insisted we remodel the upstairs bathroom and install the tub. I asked a handyman to break through the wall, enlarge the room, tile a larger shower stall, and hook up my claw foot tub.

He said that the tub was the “heaviest fucking thing that's ever gone up a flight of stairs.”  It took two strong men, long planks of wood and a pulley system to make it happen. 


My husband said, “We’re running out of money for the project!” about three days after the project began.

And it's all my fault. I own it. I insisted on the remodel. I thought I was helping the situation, but perhaps you know how old houses can be. Once you begin on a project, there is no turning back; often the problems become bigger than ever imagined when we try to run new pipes and attach them to previous ones.

I will admit that we never should have remodeled the bathroom because to this day, two years later, the bathroom is still not quite finished. It simply became too expensive. 

To think the entire thing began because of a desire to take a particular bath only seen in movies. 

And there was a drippy faucet and a slow leak into the dining room below, which is how I convinced my husband that we should rip the old bathroom apart to begin with.

Here is a list of what could STILL be done:
Knotty pine paneling added to one section of the wall.
The “temporary” door removed and the real door frame and door built and hung.
The floor finished.
The tub faucet fixed (the tub faucet purchased on EBAY drips and only runs hot!)
New tiling by the toilet.
 
Oh, I could go on but I won't.

We went through a phase this past summer, when drain water from the toilet splashed through a massive cast iron pipe (that was so old it needed to be replaced) to the kitchen downstairs -—I know, gross— and the shower drain clogged often caused water to drip into the lathe and plaster of the dining room ceiling. All these problems, which were not caused by the remodel, have been addressed and solved, thankfully.

Stressful? Absolutely. Time consuming? Yep. Expensive. Uh-huh. Worth it? 

Sure.

The water is scalding hot when it pours from the faucet into the tub, but I fill it anyway and retreat to my writing desk to write for an hour while the water cools. When I finally climb in and submerge myself and the water is the perfect temperature, I close my eyes (so I don’t have to look at the aspects of the bathroom that aren’t done) and think about my characters and the crazy things they will do next.

My unfinished bathroom helps me. I think about finishing all my writing projects while I bathe in an unfinished bathroom. Writing is stressful and time consuming and taking a bath in a claw foot helps alleviate that stress. At least I have my tub!

Writing is worth it. The "remodel" was worth it. 

I both love and hate the way both my bathroom and my writing make me feel. What else can I say? I'm a restless writer who needs a claw foot tub so I can go beneath the surface to block out the world and come back refreshed enough to face it.  

I'm not always submerged in water or deluged with a desire to write, but pretty darn close.

I am proud to call myself a submerging writer.

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