Sometimes I sit on public toilets with all my clothes on. I cry. I sleep. I read. I think. I pray.Over the years, I have had some very memorable personal moments in public bathroom stalls.
- When I was an accounting intern and desperate to escape the monotony of editing the annual report, I would sit on the john, put my head on my knees, and take 10-minute power naps.
- The first time I visited a boyfriend's family, I started to have a silent emotional freak-out at a Chinese restaurant with everyone there. So I excused myself, found the commode, and engaged in some urgent positive self-talk.
- The day after a close friend told me about his struggle with a decade-long addiction, I instantaneously burst into tears at my desk at work, so I made a quick escape to the nearest toilet.
- When I went to London to visit my friend Jane, I arrived at the train station about an hour before our scheduled meeting. It was too cold to wait outside, so I located the "water closet," sat with my hiking backpack between my knees, put my head on it, and slept. I awoke to the sound of Jane hesitantly calling out my name in the echoey bathroom.
- Once I snuck away from my desk and into a toilet stall with a book under my arm because I was dying to see what was about to happen in Brooke Shield's memoir Down Came The Rain. (I fully acknowledge that not everyone will find postpartum depression as suspenseful as I do.)
The toilet stall has become like a transportable temple: it's the only place in public where I can be alone, meditate, re-focus and find a little comfort.
There are, however, some hazards to this sanctuary.
One is the automatic flusher. All that rushing and splashing directly beneath your pants can be a rude wake-up call. It is also important to maintain your cover - which requires that you flush upon exiting regardless of how painful it is to watch all that clean water go to waste.* Then you have to wash your clean hands. The hand washing, however, provides an opportunity to look in the mirror and clean up the mascara that has probably smeared during the crying, sleeping or thinking process.
Finally, I recommend the handicap stall whenever possible - the better lighting and larger space make it that much more inviting as a refuge.
*(It wasn't until college that I realized that the flusher bar on the toilet is meant to be hit with your foot, not your hand. It grosses me out to think how many times I touched a lever that had probably just been kicked by a shoe.)
5 comments:
Your foot? really? I apparently still don't know that. But you wash your hands (thoroughly) upon exiting any bathroom stall, right? I mean, how many people open the stall doors with dirty hands, which you then open, no matter how clean you've attempted to keep your own hands.
Anyway, I'm still alive, haven't caught any tapeworms or parasites yet... :P
I too have had memorable moments in many a public bathroom but almost all of them involve throwing up due to my Crohns--ahhhh memories! I never knew it was a commonly held thing to flush with your foot but I always did it becuase I am a a slight germ-a-phobe!
I am glad the "Loo" has been there for you! (:
haha! i remember that, and your stories of power naps on the toilet during your internship at the newspaper the summer we lived together. sadly, i've never been able to develop that same relationship with the loo that you have...i'll try to work on that!
This simultaneously shows a totally new side of you, but also explains so much of what I all ready know about you. When I know what exactly this means I'll let you know.
Haha! I loved this! I would like to request a post on bathrooms that you have used across the world. You have seen many international bathrooms =) I was trying to think of any memories involving us and bathrooms and the only one I could think of was a toliet outside of the bathroom--the one in your yard. I think we have a picture around it.
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