You may start to think I'm a little obsessed with showers, but in fact I'm a little obsessed with everything.
Showers are a small protected space in the day. The requirements are simple as is the activity. You walk into the shower and a few minutes later you walk out warm, wet, happy, and cleaner. The act of washing is simple and repetitive. It requires very little thought, which clears the way for everything else. Showers put the lie to any notion that I am a single unified self. There are multitudes inside me.
Take this morning. I have been playing a lot of music and it is common for me to sing in the bathroom and shower. This morning I was singing "Summertime", the same verse over and over, but a jazzy scat version with lots of embellishment and some pushing of the harmony. As with much bathroom singing I thought I was doing a pretty good job of it and part of my mind started wandering to think about what it would be like to give a regular short weekly concert, maybe a half hour or so, at a very nice concert venue at Colorado State University. I would love to do this, but the University is quite closed off. I've pursued ways to work with the music school, but there are roadblocks and nothing has panned out. It would be really nice to bring in other musicians I have been playing with for this little non-existent concert. Oooh, for a long time I have thought it would be nice to find a reasonably accomplished tabla player to improvise with -- and flute/tabla music starts running through my head in along with "Summertime".
All this is going through my head as I am singing, taking off my robe, adjusting water temperature, and climbing in to the shower. After a minute enjoying the warm water, I stop singing. For the rest of the shower, and even now, "Summertime" is still floating through my head. It is a little musical background to everything else I am thinking and doing, but my mind moves over to thinking about this multi-processing going on and how I find it an interesting story, maybe I should write it up. Meanwhile I'm rinsing my little mesh body scrubber, washing my hair and starting to lather up. The lack of musical venues for me is running through my head as I re-imagine various schemes that I may or may not work on to secure spots and I'm idly thinking of pieces for these little short concerts. This is at the same time, I'm observing this mix of events and "Summertime" is still there, with variations, running through my head.
Is it any wonder that sometimes after having been in the shower for five minutes, I honestly cannot remember whether I have washed my hair or not?
