130. Hot baths and cups of tea.

How we learn to love ourselves and losing our loved ones.

My love for hot baths and cups of tea both come from my grandmother. Or as us grandchildren call her, Nannie. Whenever I’m feeling sick or sad the first thing I do is run myself a bath. I remember being small, I couldn’t tell you an exact age but very young, and her always wanting to run me a bath when I was staying at her house. I guess you could say that it was part of her love language. Whenever I think of the bathtub in her house, I remember it being really wide and long. I’m not sure if this was because I was so small or because she was smart and chose a bigger bathtub than most houses usually have. She had epsom salts to add to the water, bubble bath, a head cushion that was attached to the bath and the crown jewel was that her bathtub turned into a jacuzzi at the touch of a button. 

There was a brown clock opposite you in the tub hanging from the wall. She’d always say that fifteen minutes was the maximum time to have the jets going, I always pushed it a little bit longer. 

I remember spending a lot of time in water with her. She taught me to swim in the local swimming center when I was two years old, we used to go every Sunday morning like clockwork and my GP (grandpa) would sit and watch us from outside the pool. I also remember the day she said “look at the fishies Emmi”, she was referring to the tiled fish at the bottom of the pool, and that was the last day we ever went to the swimming center. I was traumatized from that day onwards that they were real fish and could possibly eat me. We did go back when I was older and no longer scared of the mosaic on the pool floor, I remember we had a bit of a commotion with one of the lifeguards because they told us I was too big to be using one of the crocodile shaped floats, they were my favourite.

We took a lot of baths together too and I remember her always being the first adult to jump into a swimming pool with us as kids. When we all went on holiday together to Lanzarote she’d pull my brother and I around the pool on a body board until she fell in with all her clothes on. 

I don’t remember this myself, but I’ve seen the home videos and been told many times that I used to love sitting in a navy blue plastic Sainsbury’s shopping basket in Nannie’s garden. Again, happy in water.

Cups of tea are made with water too. And she made me them in tiny Peter Rabbit mugs when she’d take care of me while my parents were at work. Mum says Nannie would always secretly add in a few teaspoons of sugar because she knew I loved it. I still do. 

When I can’t take a bath, I drink a cup of tea and sometimes I drink tea while in the bath. They are the two things that still remain as my comfort things to this day. It’s funny how the way people show us their love can transform into the ways we love ourselves as adults.

Whenever I’m not feeling great, physically or mentally, I run myself a bath and when the boiling hot water first touches my skin, I feel a shudder of ecstasy and comfort. I close my eyes and slowly begin to feel better like I’m being taken care of, which I am in a way. A bath can fix a lot of problems. Or at least transform your thoughts and feelings into something else by the time you’re ready to get out.

Nobody makes a cup of tea like GP, I buy the exact same tea bags as he does and I always follow his instructions but it never, ever, tastes the same. He says to use a big spoon and to push the water through the tea bag because it has a bigger surface area, that sounds easy but it never works. The same goes for when someone else runs you a bath and gets the bathroom ready for you so that you only have to get in, those baths feel different too. My mum always says that whenever someone else makes you a simple ham and cheese sandwich it always tastes better because you didn’t have to make it, so maybe they all follow the same principle: That we love people taking care of us.

I live with C and he’s not English so he doesn’t offer me cuppas very often, but when I ask him to put the kettle on, even his taste better than mine do. I would say that he had a great teacher but I hardly ever get the sugar/milk/brew time proportions right and end up with either a watery or lukewarm cup of tea.

Maybe it all comes down to the intention behind the act of loving someone else and taking care of them through these acts of service.

My love C and I run a second hand objects shop called Dimanche Objects and these chairs were a recent find. We’re in love.

A short outro on loving people.

I came downstairs after the Book Club meeting to find C lying on the sofa wrapped in our fluffy brown blanket. I asked him what he was doing and he said “think about life and death.” He opened up the blanket to let me get in and lie down next to him. He gave me a big cuddle and told me that he loves me deeply. He went on to explain why he was thinking about life and death and I ended up crying, loud-snotty-red-faced-wailing-crying, because I realised that one day one of us will die and leave the other one behind. It will be the only moment in my life when I’ll ever leave him behind, and it will only be because I’ll have no other choice.

That made me realise that my whole life as I know it right now would no longer make sense if he weren’t here to share it with me. My life would go on, I’d move into new routines, I’d adapt to my new circumstances but everything I know as my life right now would stop making sense. None of our joint creative projects would make sense without him, him by my side is what makes them so fun. Going to find new second hand objects for our shop would make no sense. I don’t think I’d want to carry on with the project if I couldn’t do it with him. Living in the countryside would make no sense either. I’d last one day here alone in the middle of these fields, I’d be too scared to sleep without the lights on, I’d struggle to chop up the firewood and light the fire every day. I’d be surrounded by silence and not having him next to me makes me wonder what I’d do with my thousands of daily thoughts and reflexions. Who would wake me up with the smell of freshly made coffee? My whole entire life and being would be different and that breaks my heart.

I’m sorry to end this essay talking about death, I know it’s something none of us want to think about. I mean that’s why I ended up balling my eyes out, snot dripping down my face as I felt my heart physically ache, but it’s a part of life and when accepted, it can be one of your biggest tools to out everything into perspective.

We’re all going to die.

Nothing is more important to me than waking up and realising how blessed I am to be alive myself, and to wake up every day with the love of my life. Getting to spend yet another day by his side. They’re limited and I don’t know how many days I’m going to get in total with him. And that’s the same for us all so don’t take it for granted.

I love you buddy.

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