January–February Fragments

Radiators

The one I am looking at is by my desk. It has been painted over many times, but it’s been a while since someone thought to paint between each slot. It’s been painted various shades, or perhaps I’m just looking at coats of the same colour—was it once the murky yellow I see from my desk? In the evening, the light from my lamp pours into the radiator and I see this mustardy shade. There is the occasional splattering of white paint and droplets that have dried before they have fallen, are these marks of carelessness or an unsteady hand, or a paint job done hastily just so it is done.

It looks heavy. I imagine each radiator that sits in my apartment weighing a ton and somehow anchoring my place to the building. They hold each wall to the floor, and keep watch at every window. They are each a part of the building’s intricate heating network and I am surprised, when I press my ear to them, that I can’t hear the muffled voices that fill the other units. I should be able to hear echoes, at the very least, from their industrial chambers.

The warmth of the radiator nibbles at my ear. When I am close enough I can spot cobwebs in the arches. Dust and hair and dead insects and pencil shavings are caught in their lines, and somewhere there are spiders. These architects move drunkenly, filled up on the heat, from one cluster to the next, to find everything they had stored for the winter.

I sometimes stand and rest my hands on the top of the radiator, I am always amazed at how warm they are and how often I feel cold—their heat is subtle when you stand in the middle of the room. I imagine the dark potent fluid that accumulates in their veins in the colder months, and I recognize this, somewhat. Don’t we all hold on to things that churn and rot—might I need to be drained, too, as the radiators do, before next winter?

A sink-full

There are some things that stick with you from childhood. Small things, habits, patterns that were so part of the day-to-day that you grew up thinking that every other family in every other home did them too. After dinner, we would turn up the music, put on a new cd, or start our favourite track over again. We would stand in the kitchen doing the dishes, listening to music, one person washing, one drying, and one putting things away.

Tonight after dinner I put my earphones in and played an album I had been meaning to listen to. I love washing dishes—I can think of everything or nothing at all, sing along to a song, cry when the heaviness of the day floods in, either way, I’ve always thought it was so relaxing, maybe even therapeutic.

So I brought this little tradition with me into adulthood and tonight I’m reminded that there is so much comfort in doing the dishes during the colder months—it’s the hot water on your hands while the rest of your body stands in a slight chill. It’s dark out, you feel a little heavy and sleepy, and the repetitive rinsing, pumping of soap, scrubbing, rinsing, and drying feels like a meditation of sorts.

I can think of everything or nothing at all, but tonight I’m thinking of doing the dishes with my parents, of the cds we listened to, and the little habits we’ve held on to for many years that have made these mundane tasks feel special. And a small part of me—the part of me that felt hollow and raw when my doctor asked if I was planning on starting a family this year—hopes that one day there will be at least one other person in the kitchen doing the dishes with me, we can take turns on the music.

Shower notes

You need to let the water run when you’re on the top floor of an old building, especially in the morning. It’s as though the furnace is just waking from its own slumber. I like to brush my teeth while I’m waiting, but I don’t leave the tap on because it feels wasteful to run both shower and sink. The first stains of tea are brushed and spat into the basin, the minty flavour tingling at my tongue. I pick at my winter-dry lips, flakes from the night before spin like helicopter seeds, and I close the bathroom door to keep the heat in.

The towels are set, the bath mat laid, and I see the first signs of condensation on the glass door of the shower. The door fell towards me once as I was openning it. I had felt it coming loose for a while and noted the screw barely holding it to the wall, it seemed exhausted. One winter evening, when all I wanted was to be warm, when my pyjamas were in the dryer and I had just stepped out of a warm shower, the door fell towards me and it weighed more than I expected—the screw and the door were in protest. I leant the door on the other side of the wall but kept imagining what it would be like to clean up the pieces if it should fall and shatter. This wasn’t a broken mug or plate, it was a glass door. If it should break the space would break too, the geography of the bathroom forever altered. 

I cut fragments of a yogurt container that I had rinsed out that morning and stuffed them into the dull hole—the screw needed something to dig into. From a step ladder I angled the door back to its rightful place and turned the screw into the bits of plastic. The door swung back and forth once again, the boundary between shower and rest-of-bathroom restored.

It has been a few years now since I somewhat repaired the glass door but I feel it getting heavy again. It has seen more traffic now that you’re here. And I imagine the weight of our little messages, drawn into the condensation, is pulling on it too. We have traced hearts, I love us, our initials, and a penis because we are still giddy with the subtle immaturity that comes with infatuation. I have pressed my lips to the glass. My shampoo, conditioner, your coconut body wash, and the soap scum from showers past and present linger on my lips. I am always delighted to find hints of silliness and humanity the following day, when they reemerge in the heat of the shower—there are ghosts of our messages on the glass.