Sometimes I sense that to put real confidence in my memory I have to get to the end of all rememberings. That seems to say that I forego remembering. And now that strikes me as an accurate description of what it is to have confidence in one's memory.
          --Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason

I remember the bathtubs in my grandparents' houses, which I would use when I slept over. My uptown grandmother's tub was bigger than ours -- taller, just as her ceilings were higher and the after dinner fruit she put out bulkier. The water filled more quickly and deafeningly. There was a blue streak down the porcelain where the water crashed into it from the spout. The feel of the porcelain was rougher, less glossy, more matte. Her tub all seemed older, not statelier like her curtains, but erect and somewhat joyless in a way that would have been stately and patient if our own tub hadn't seemed so much more obviously how things should be. I guess a place for the flow of water should not look pursed, as hers did. Or maybe the tub just seemed that much more appropriate for my grandparents to take a bath, but not at all appropriate for a kid. It had no knowledge of me or what my bathing would be like. Floating toys would have made no sense to it, with its strange soap (again bulkier than the Dial we used) and odd rubber non-slip soap-holders, and narrow ledges (here it offered less than our did, in keeping with the way it just wasn't accommodating).

I remember when my downtown grandparents moved downtown the thing I was surprised by was their tub. It was small, and had only two faucets and not four. It was the first tub I'd ever seen where you had to pull up a piece of metal (on what's called the "diverter spout") to take a shower. It light blue and not pleasant to take a bath in. She had a rubber mat so you wouldn't slip when showering, which also meant that this was basically a shower not a bathtub. There wasn't much light if you sat in the tub either, so it was hard to play in and hard to read in as well. She also had a reservoir toilet, as opposed to the toilets at home and in my uptown grandparents' house, which was the standard flush of water from the building itself -- you never had to wait for the reservoir to refill. I liked my own bathroom best.

posted by william 6:37 AM
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