8 of 10 "Rooms"

The kitchen and the bathroom are my two favorite rooms. 

If I could only have a house of two rooms, 

those would be them. 

The kitchen for loving. 

And the shower for forgiving. 

The kitchen to remember, 

the bathroom to forget. 

Bedrooms are dangerous if you leave your dreaming 

always and only for night. 

They just might swallow your ambition.

Hallways are passages just long enough to get lost in. 

Stairs are easy enough 

to push or be pushed down 

in the rush for fulfillment, success, 

and getting what’s yours to be had. 

But kitchens, 

they are for giving, for sharing. 

And the shower is that requisite don’t-forget-to-breathe 

and permission to be. 

Kitchens are for the mess of life 

with all of the wonder which that should bring. 

Showers are for getting clean, 

for letting go, and for moving on; 

because, when you are done, all you have left is you.

So take a bottle of soap.

Cry as mush as you like while you scrub.

No one else will be bothering you for awhile.

It is the bathroom after all.

Send all of the bad days down the drain

into that mysterious plumbing.

Living rooms are deceitful.

They would have you think that life

is only what you have when you are not working.

But living does not happen only in those particular four walls,

I would hope.

Dining rooms are liars as well.

They make you think family

is who sits around your table

and hospitality is what happens

at a quarter to 7:00.

Keep the sharp things in your kitchen,

knives, scissors, cheese graters and other divisive objects

which require discretion.

And keep the soft things always nearby:

towels, tissues, and a clean set of clothes.

If I could have a house of only two rooms,

these would be them.

A kitchen for loving,

a bathroom for forgiving.

Not just for loving and forgiving others,

but also to forgive and love yourself.