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I love baths. The sound of running water alone delights and relaxes me, makes my day end well—as I rarely go to bed without that one luxury. The bathroom of my 1932 house was remodeled not long before I moved in. It is not my taste, with lots of mauve and grey swirls—I prefer something less distracting, especially in my bath, especially in a 1932 house. Still, I can easily yield to the relaxing aspects of the design when I sink into a tub filled with hot water laced with salts, or bubbles, or something that smells delicious. Depending on my state of mind, I may retreat there with tea, or ice water, or on occasion a glass of wine, or maybe even something even scotch smoky heady entrancing elixir. Oh, rarely that. Usually, the bath alone is plenty to love. Add a candle: Ah. Add music: paradise. Add flowers: wow. All right, now I’m just drifting into dreamland as I imagine that. I have put flowers in my bathroom maybe once, when I had many blooming in my own gardens.

Baths are part of so many cultural rituals, cultures whose baths I have not known. I still imagine the experience of the Roman baths, the Japanese, the mikvah. I have basked in the hot springs of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. I have found hidden springs out west in other places, long ago. But these are more public rituals; my bath is something much more personal. I take showers when I need to clean up, but I take baths to ready my soul for sweet dreams and comfort. Something of washing away the frustrations, the loudness, the many voices—even ones I love—and crawling into bed afterward… It is such a treat, such a necessity.

This is one habit that I have kept for so long—back to when I decided to stop fighting my parents’ notion that children had to wash up on a regular basis. Once, I vividly remember realizing that the bath felt absolutely wonderful, and I became an enthusiastically clean child. I must have been eight or nine when I started retreating there completely on my own, sometimes with a book. My family never thought they would see me again. We only had one bathroom when I was growing up—my bedroom was the closest to it, and I used to slink in when no one noticed. The hours I spent in there were an escape, a wonderful world of water.

Baths are a habit I would ache to give up… hence my sore disappointment at the times in my life when I have found myself without access to a tub. I can name them: first, going to college. Showers only… except one dorm room in some buildings had their own bathrooms, usually with showers… It seems strange that my boyfriend then managed to get the only dorm room on campus with a tub. But then, he graduated. I quit school.

The year I lived in Normandy, again, no bathtub. The showers were not even terribly pleasant. A button turned them on, always ice cold to start, and then the water turned automatically off after two minutes. It took at least two times hitting those buttons to get warm water, which was only available between 8am and 9pm, anyway.

I was sick for several weeks in France early in the year, and finally bought a ticket for Spain in desperation. Please, I needed sun! It was fabulous, paella on the beach, laughing, singing. A new friend I met through new friends I made on the train let me stay with her family in Barcelona (yes, with tub), and her parents spoiled us all wonderfully. On the way home, I was stopped at the border, just after crossing back into France. My train ticket was not valid in France for four days, so I had to stay in Cerbères. The small pension I found for $10 a night had an enormous bathtub, which the owner said I could use—with hot water!—if I cleaned it. I ate roast chicken, talked to scuba divers and fishermen, wrote, and realized at some point that I was no longer sick. And of course, I took many baths, enough to last until I went home.

Water heals. Wildhaus, a village in Switzerland, has a pond called the Schwendisee, full of minerals. The Thaya River that flows through Drosendorf, Austria, on the Czech border, seems to dispense its own magic, too. I would hesitate to believe the power of these waters unless I had not felt my own bruises, cuts, tired muscle aches disappear in them.

So, now, it has been a long week. So many changes: a new school for my son, a new job for me. So far so good. So, I now say good night. But before I drift off, you all know where I will be. Let’s see. Tonight, with the perfumed bubbles, I’ll pull out the João Gilberto: “Só em teus braços, amor, eu posso ser feliz.”

Coffee is such a pleasure. It sometimes amazes me, the time and effort that go into these sorts of habits, how we spend so much time perfecting them and embellishing them.

I wonder these things as I watch my lovely chrome Expobar extract yet another outstanding espresso with thick, sweet crema. I watch it steam the milk, letting it warm, heat, nearly carmelizing it because I like it sweet, foamy but not bubbly, just sublime.

Who first figured this out? Whose compulsion made the quest for crema the aim of all baristas, including me on a Sunday morning? And then, what of the simple, cream-colored Wedgwood Windsor cup I drink it from? It is a moment I cherish, an anonymous tribute to brilliance shining in my morning. Someone I do not know paved paths to beauty, made moments of my life glorious in small ways, if only because they felt some calling to seek some wonderful, indefinable thing.