Drinking wine in the shower

When you died, Deniro, I was very very sad. But I wasn’t fundamentally different. Nothing shifted at my core. I cried, I held your leash in my hand. I briefly thought about how sad it was that you died younger than I thought you should at the tender doggy age of 6 versus 9 or 10 like I’d planned. But when you died, I wasn’t different. Not like this.

I’ve always been a quick shower person, believing in the utility of showers versus the luxury of them. I’m in there to get clean and that’s all. As such, I typically take 2 to 3 minute showers. If I have to wash my hair (once a week if I’m feeling generous) I’ll spend about 9-12 minutes in the shower depending on how tangled my hair has gotten throughout the week (or 9 days) since my last wash. More recently, I’ve even embraced taking a cold shower in the mornings, which is meant to shock you into your body, force you to focus on your breath, and ultimately make you a better, more resilient person.

Tonight, I stood in the shower for an eternity. I did all the things I’m supposed to do in there. I washed my hair, I put the conditioner in my hair and braided the wet, product-soaked tresses into a low, side braid so the conditioner could work its magic while I cleaned the rest of my body. Then I unfurled the braid, easing my fingers between my curls in a way that disconnected them from each other without breaking them. Then I paused and noticed how hopelessly chipped my nail polish was and stared at my fingernails for 6-7 minutes.

Detangling my hair was a breeze. The comb glided through with no trouble as if to say “you need a win today.”

That was it. My work was done. But there I stood, unable to remove myself from the warmth of the shower. My partner opened the bathroom door about 10 minutes later and handed me a glass of wine over the top of the glass enclosure. Apparently, when your girlfriend usually takes no more than a 12 minute shower, and she’s already been in there for 25 minutes, you must bring her wine. I thanked him, took a sip of the wine held precariously in my wet and starting-to-prune hand and let a few tears fall. Crying in the shower is just the best thing ever. Have you tried it? The water rinses away the tears and snot but you still get the release.

I stood there, holding my wine, thinking about how my mom texted the day she died. She didn’t know she was going to die. She thought she was just unwell. She knew it was coming eventually, but not that day. Not July 23rd. The futility of it all is astounding. Not of life, I don’t believe life is futile, I believe too much planning is futile. Straying away from the moment is futile. She was knitting a baby blanket when she died and it’s just sitting there, yarn still on the needles in her knitting bag at my brother’s house. Unfinished business in the literal sense and I think wow we just are gone and the inertia stops.

I look down and see that there’s a fair amount of hair in the shower drain. Still with my wine in hand, I become wholly preoccupied with clearing the hair. The problem is that I have a literal open wound just below my knee from kneeling on a wine glass last week, plus I’m holding wine to sooth the literal open wound between my ribs. I decide the only thing to do is to use my big toe. So I rub my toe along the drain vigorously at first to loosen the hair, and then slowly and strategically to move the hair away from the drain. I spend at least 15 minutes on this endeavor. Stopping only to examine my progress. My posture doesn’t change the entire time. Only my gaze. Hand is steady with the wine. Now even more pruned so I tighten my grip on the glass.

I finish my task and have now made a pile of hair in the corner of the shower, far enough away that the running water won’t nudge the recently freed hairs back into the prison of the drain. But now what? I decide to clip my toenails. I consider for a moment if I can accomplish the task while holding the wine. Sadly, no. I cannot. Not with the literal open wound below my knee preventing me from fully bending my leg. I set the wine on the shower caddy thing, which is an amazingly good wine-holder. Perhaps this is what the designers had in mind when they created it. I clip my toenails and then, disgustingly shove the clippings down the center of the drain figuring I just cleared it of all the hair, what are a few toenail clippings going to hurt?

My wine supply is now dwindling and I’m passing the one-hour mark in the shower. I turn off the water with the hesitancy of disconnecting life support. It’s suddenly cold and quiet in the bathroom. I open the shower door and grab my towel. Back to business.