If it be your will...

My favorite spot in the house also happens to be the smallest room in my home. The one that smells of musk. Without going into too much detail about what this room might be used for, I'd like to mention that I go there when my body can no longer hold me up-- when worries begin to bear heavily upon my soul. When I arrive, the loofah is waiting with my hair from last week. It seems they've been dancing in my absence, working up a froth of old soap that keeps them comfortably bound together. But now that I'm here, they're motionless. I feel like an intruder, like the loofah and hair are watching me, judging me, perhaps even plotting against me. Soon I'm standing before them, naked, praying for forgiveness. What will it take to move past this awkward moment of humility? If it weren't for me, this odd pair would never have met, and perhaps they would have gone their entire lives not knowing of their passionate dance partner. If only I had kept my shower clean, I'm so ashamed. The yellow walls seem so pale, this room so small. My 180 pound presence is absurd in this world of soap scum and lovers.

On the other hand, had these two creatures of the bathroom floor never met, I wouldn't have this moment of frightening clarity to reflect on their invariably sensuous and complicated resting positions. Like a tangled mass of twine in the gutter, or a barnacle on a pier, only much more elegant, and on my shower floor. I find it difficult to tell one strand of hair from the other. At some places the hair is wound tightly around the loofah, but at others it reaches out to the diffuse light emitted by the shower door. It's magnificent. The dark brown fibers are endlessly probing the porous loofah, and the loofah is willing.

The loofah is so willing, so free of volition, that I can't help but think of very steady hands cradling a very handsome scalpel. The awkward moment between me, the loofah, and my hair has passed. I'm sitting on the shower floor, my eyelids pleasantly caressed by the warm running water that reminds me of a mother's hand. Through a deafening roar of soapy anesthesia the loofah screams "Do your will!"