The page is daunting. The beginning point is elusive. The emotions rumble just below the surface of thoughts. I look for truth and it’s foggy. “When Dad has his bib overalls on, he’s in constant motion.” That was the line I just typed and then erased. It’s not true today; I’d rather jump back in time and write from that vantage point of truth, not what the window framing today looks like.
Still, I grab that kernel, “constant motion,” for that is what I came here to write about today—as it relates to the candles in my bathroom. It’s a busy place that store house in my head; the swirls and twists are difficult to follow let alone document some days. But here I sit with these visions… Dad in his blue and white striped bib overalls traipsing at a good clip across the gravel drive… and my dusty candles on the table next to my bathtub. How do these two props converge into a story? Have I enough word wizardry to push these unrelated opposites into a convincing juxtaposition?
I redefine the word relax whenever I make time to relax. I have no true north as to what to do with my free time, perhaps because the premise of relaxing starts with “I should… relax.” Hereditary movement. I’m saturated with that pull. I’m antsy. To think of sitting still and doing nothing? Ugh.
Enter the candles by the bathtub. A calming glow hasn’t lit their wicks through the chunky layer of dust for months—because simply sitting in a tub of water with flickering candles does not divert my mind from tumbling thoughts. I need a depth of dimension to relax in the tub. Sometimes a book does the trick—perhaps because I feel I’m accomplishing something while sitting in a bowl of bubbles. To thoroughly yank my mind out of the thought tumbler, that book needs to concoct a world so convincing, exhilarating, and whimsical that I’m pulled into the story as if by the force of a black hole’s vacuum. A candle’s glimmer is useless if I have a book in hand; candlelight is too dim to serve as a reading light.
The other way I can thoroughly retreat to the tub is if I’m listening to a podcast and playing a matching game on my phone at the same time. I feel this bath is a cheat: I don’t like to admit to this patter of pleasant distraction via electronics. In this setting, my mind benefits from the multi-sensory smack I’ve talked about before where redirecting multiple senses also reconfigures the brain away from being a thought tumbler. The warmth of the water; the sweet, lightly scented bubbles; the sound of an upbeat storyteller’s voice in my ear; the eye candy of a simplistic game… These sensory decoys combine and create an elaborate escape.
Neither of these scenarios calls for lit candles, so the dust settles thickly on the wax and wicks. Unlike the contrived societal pairing of bubble baths and candlelight, the sight of these candles is not relaxing. They are unused props that should be deposited into the box labeled “leaving the house” that sits high up on a shelf in the mudroom.