The Small Comforts

So I've been thinking recently about some of the best feelings of the world.

Taking my shoes off. After a long day on or off my feet, there's nothing more freeing than taking my shoes off and letting my feet breath. Walking around on the carpet and feeling the softness below my feet.

There's another beautiful feeling associated with my feet. I can't really explain this one. Sometimes I sleep in my socks, because my feet are cold when I go to bed. Sometime in the night, my feet get hot, and I pull the socks off and throw them out from under the covers. When that happens, it's the most glorious feeling! I suppose it's because my feet, that had been cooped up, now get to feel the soft coolness of the sheets.

There's a new comfort that I've been introduced to recently, due to all my hotel visits. I am notorious for taking the hottest showers in the world. I suppose I keep the water just at the edge of burn level, and I stay in until my own skin radiates with heat. As a kid, I kept the bathroom door closed, and the fan off.

(This was due to a run in with an eight legged creature. I jumped in the shower and heard a faint "plip." When I emerged, there was the biggest spider ever! I'm so sure I heard him fall to the floor from the fan in the ceiling. Now, my sister says he came from the vent, from outside. But I was convinced that running the fan had somehow encouraged him to leave his happy home inside of it and venture into my world. OH! The horrors! I haven't run the fan since, and the wallpaper's starting to peel from the many saunas I've created)

Anyway, because of that, I was used to always being warm. Now, in drafty hotels, I step out of the shower into COLD AIR! Brrrr! And immediately I grab the towel. OH how cozy is that towel! It doesn't even have to be a "gourmet" towel from the Hilton. Just being there is enough. I suppose it's the same as if I had been dancing in the rain and came inside to dry off.

Ah! That's another comforting feeling! Dancing in the rain and getting cold! When you come inside, you put on dry socks or dry clothes. And it's wonderful! But it's even more wonderful if you take a hot shower. You go from the cold rain to the hot rain! What an extreme difference! From pneumonia to "squeaky clean" and ready for bed.

And now I'm getting nostalgic for Manhattan again...and rainstorms.

Ah well...