BW Boutique Hotel

The restroom is the place to relieve not only our bladders but our entire bodies—of tension, strain, and fatigue. Here we can study our naked form, practice different kinds of smiles, experiment with wild hair colors or styles, lavish every inch of skin with nourishing touch, and linger away from the maddening crowd. The bath has become, most deliciously, an excuse for getting in touch with ourselves once again.
What must it have been like before the bath “room” was invented? Did the stinky ol’ outhouse suffice as a place to linger just a bit? Did a woman ever get used to bathing in a galvanized kitchen tub surrounded by family? Was there a single space in her day for caressing her own face with sweet-smelling potions? Was she consigned to lugging water from the well house to soak her aching feet at the end of a grueling day?
My favorite scene in one of my favorite movies, Places in the Heart (starring Sally Fields), is where Edna at long last gets an opportunity to bathe at the end of a long, hot, cotton-pickin’ week. Interrupted accidentally by a blind boarder, Edna is shocked, then settles nervously into the knowledge that once he hears lapping of water in the tub, the embarrassment is his. What I love is the simplicity of that scene, where water itself—not a roomful of romantic products—is the heart of lavish relaxation.
One winter I had the privilege of spending an entire week with a friend who lived in a sixteenth-century cottage in Essex, England. Her home was a medieval structure through whose door I had to duck to keep from bumping my noggin. There was no central heating, only a coal fireplace in the corner of the small sitting room. So while our backsides froze, we sat in front of the fire drinking cups of tea made in a proper Royal Doulton teapot. Rain drizzled across crooked, misshapen windows. At bedtime Jane offered me her tiny chamber, once a sleeping loft, and introduced me to another Royal Doulton pot. Hand painted with an elaborate lid, it sat regally just under the bed. The pot was meant to save me the trouble of a midnight trip to the loo at “the other end of the garden.”

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