It was a hot summer day and Sarah had been busy planting trees on the south side of the house. She knew it was time to stop her work because the sun was more in the west and if she did not start supper soon it would be late.
Sarah went in the house and put her sun hat on the rack by the door and went into the bedroom, stripped off her dirty clothes and filled her washbowl with cool water. She placed the pitcher on the wash stand and then scooped up water in both her hands and splashed the cool water on her warm face.
She soaped up her cloth and washed and rinsed her face then bathed the rest of her body. After she patted herself dry she brushed her hair and twisted the sides of her hair until they met in the middle then she tucked them in a roll and pinned her hair to stay put.
Sarah donned her apron and headed to the kitchen, tonight supper would be Potatoes with peas and some leftover meatloaf. Sarah felt good with what she had accomplished today.
The only part of this story that was not true was the name Sarah, it should have been Donna.
There are no rules or reasons we have to follow what everyone else is doing. We can live as simple as we want, or not. The decision is ours to make but there is a decision and that is do we use what we need or waste.
The more the simple life I live the more I do not want to waste.
The good part is the moment I realized that I could change I did.
Have you ever taken a wash basin bath as did your Great Grandparents or Grandparents or Parents? It is very surprising how clean you get by bathing this way. Before making a decision on what we think about such a question we should experience it first hand, that is the only way you really know.
Using a normal size wash basin pitcher of water will actually bathe and rinse your body, clean your feet and wash the bowl. In the past people washed like this during the week and then bathed at times in a tub but using the wash bowl was very common.
Once you have soaped your body you pour that water into a container, rinse your cloth and pour fresh water again in the bowl.
The rinse water is more water than the wash water...
Go back over your body several time with a clean rinsed cloth. Just pretend I have shorts on here and ignore the swollen left knee/leg from overworking it putting up a fence and shoveling dirt.
This was a real washbowl bath and I am trying to make an important point. I want to show you that there is nothing wrong with this method and you actually get very clean. I do bathe like this in between baths now that we live more like the past. I truly feel a connection to my generations before me when I bathe like this. It feels right. If nothing else learn to do this in case of an emergency situation.
You can bathe your feet really good using the rinse water after you have rinsed.
There is normally enough water left over to clean the bowl.
This is a very old chamber pot. I am using it to put the used water from the washbowl in so I can pour it outside on the young fruit trees. So nothing is wasted.
If you notice the edge is curved out and this is so you can sit on this bucket to use it like a toilet. This is what they did in the past and could be today if there was a need for it.
When taking a washbowl bath it can be used for females to sit on and use a small pitcher of water to pour "down there" for rinsing. Our generations before us did these things as normal life was. Nothing was thought about it as should not be today. I am sure there are people today still doing this around the world.
I feel empowered and resourceful when I bring back the real life living from the past to the present, it just feels right.
At some point we went over the line, the edge, to the side of waste. When I was younger there was always just one phone in the house. We did not have a phone for many years when I first married and when we did get one there was only one for many years. Now look how things have changed and why? I feel life would not be so volatile if there was only one phone per household because drug deals and planned crime would be lessened without cell phones. Just imagine how much better life would be for all the children addicted to phones.
Life would be more simple.
But we have learned to settle for whatever it is. We settle for plastic and toxic things and we settle for many things that we know are toxic or bad for us. It is too much.
We have supersized everything from houses to cars, to couches and chairs to coffee cups. What are we doing?
When did we stop caring how much more we use than we need?
My suggestion is get a pitcher, a pan, water, a cloth, bar of soap and a bucket and take a wash basin bath and water a tree or a bush and then sit down and ponder on that simple full circle.
Grandma Donna
