By Eze Echie
Last time we were talking about standing before the mirror before going to bed. That sounded so much like making preparations for a beauty contest. But we were able to clarify the fact that, really, it had nothing to do with preparing for a beauty contest. It was more about trying to look inwards to see the beauty in oneself and life generally, especially after facing the hard knocks that life usually gives one on a daily basis.
Today’s writing concentrates on a similar thing. The question that readily comes to mind is: Does one not know the need to take a bath before going to bed? It sounds rather simplistic, and, perhaps, very absurd and childish, to come on a platform of this kind to ‘advise’ people to take a shower before going to bed. It sounds as if people do not (already) know what they are supposed to do. Well, if someone takes this line of thought (questioning whether they do not really know what to do at nights relating to their bodies’ cleanliness before going to bed), they are not making any mistakes.
However, the main thrust of today’s conversation is to do a little (rare) departure from what is usually individually done by each of us on a daily basis. To emphasise this kind of unusual departure from what we do (almost on a daily basis), our attention has to be drawn to a specific word used here (in the title of this article). It is the word: ‘therapeutic’. What does it bring to mind? When something is said to be therapeutic, or said to play a therapeutic role, it means that such a thing has the ability to ‘cure’ or ‘heal’. In essence, if one is speaking about having a therapeutic bath, it simply means that one is referring to having the kind of bath that can bring about a healing experience. It is a kind of bath that can have a curative effect on one’s life; beyond cleansing bodily dirts. It could get into one’s soul and spirit (in a sense of it).
Recall that in our previous edition, it was hinted that in our daily activities and interactions with others, it usually happened that one had myriads of experiences – both good and bad. The negative experiences always left one with some feelings or emotions of pain. Some brutal bruises of emotions could emanate from such activities and encounters. Imagine you were in such a situation that led to verbal onslaughts or abuses. Think about encountering someone who unleashed venomous and ridiculous statements. Suppose you were in a situation whereby someone gave you a very demeaning statement or response. All these could lead to a serious sense of disappointments, misgivings, and the like. As such, one could possibly be going home becoming very emotionally battered, bruised, bitter, and dejected, if one handled it carelessly. And if such a situation arises, what could one possibly do? Or, do we think that in such a circumstance the person involved does not need a healing experience? Amidst various hurts and having a harmed heart, a huge sense of disappointments, dissatisfaction, bitter feelings, and so on, is healing ( I mean ‘self-healing’) not a necessity? The point is obvious.
In my opinion, one of the ways of achieving this ‘self-healing’ experience on a daily basis is to have a therapeutic shower experience. This therapeutic experience is most likely best at nights when the day’s businesses have been concluded by one. It, thus, has a way of setting one in the right ‘mode’ or ‘mood’ as one prepares for that experience which was previously referred to as the foretaste of death (sleep as we all know or call it). As you walk into the bathroom, you stand before or under the shower. Isn’t it? Or , as you walk into the bathroom, you walk into the bath? Even if you are using a bathing bucket (as usual) to take your shower, the most important thing here, for me, is that exchange of a ‘spiritual conversation’ with water (a natural thing).
What is unique in this case is the fact that water has to be looked at from another perspective (as a supernatural ‘element’). Here, this is the crux of the matter after all. One can communicate with water, not in terms of making enchantments or incantations with it, but in the sense that it is seen as something that has the ability to ‘heal’ one. To see it as something that can wash away ‘emotional dirts’ and all sorts of things that cloud the mind (to some extent) is something that is weightier than the normal bodily dirts which we know that water does wash away. It should be clearly understood that it can do much more than the ordinary. It can wash off dirty emotions, ill-feelings, hurts, brutal bruises, etc. Just as one feels elated when, after a long while of being very thirsty, one is able to gulp a cup of chilled water. You know what a refreshing experience that could be or what it feels like!
What is more? There is a need to re-programme one’s mind when it comes to bathing at night. It has to be taken more seriously than ever before. It is a sort of ‘spiritual exercise’, and not just as one of those daily nightly routines. If this is done, one is very likely to wash off those dirty feelings and emotions that clog one’s mental wheel of progress. This way, one’s mental engine would not suddenly grind to a halt amidst the cacophonies of life’s activities and bitter experiences. One would be able to round off the day’s activities on a better note. It could leave one with a ‘wow!’ feeling if religiously done. Then, the night becomes a better moment.
Hopefully, this ‘renewed’ or better experience of the night would definitely rub off on how one wakes up in the next morning. Do not forget that we had earlier been told that there’s nothing like the wrong side of the bed. People do not wake up on the wrong side of the bed. They wake up on the wrong side of their minds. A therapeutic bath could help one wake up on the right side of one’s mind.
Eze Echie is a writer, poet, columnist wrote in from Port Harcourt Rivers State contact +234 802 513 9316
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