Down to the Bones
Where we go when we're taken right down to the studs
We are having the bathroom in our 754 square foot rented Boston apartment demolished and renovated this month, and I am so excited to be rid of the tub that always leaks water out onto the floor during a shower and said floor, that no matter how hard it is scrubbed, always looks kind of dingy in the corners. I’m also astonished (and annoyed) to discover what an adventure (inconvenience) it is having an entire room in such a modestly sized apartment being taken right out of commission for the next couple of weeks.
Though I’ve been known to blow off organizing my apartment for juicy creative pursuits, I am not afraid to admit that living in the kind of physical mess that a construction project like this throws your living space into is not my favorite thing. At all. In fact, despite my beginning attitude of cheerfully saying “It is what it is!” I’m feeling quite of sorts because of it.
I have always felt deeply connected to the physical spaces around me, and though I’ve shared plenty of conversation with people in my life who claim “It’s about the people and the memories, not the physical places!” I really do believe that we are much more tied to the energy of the physical spaces themselves than we might like to admit. Heck, even if I don’t have every item catalogued and put away just so in my home under the best of circumstances, my living space certainly has a reliable kind of order and flow that serves my own order and flow, and because of this, things generally run smoothly.
It’s been maddening and fascinating to notice just how much the removal of one room of our home (granted, it is the bathroom, though they technically are leaving the toilet as long as they can) disrupts this order and flow, and makes even the simplest of goals (literally getting dinner on the table) play out in a herky jerky way.
Having had to remove the standing cabinet we had in the bathroom, all the contents of the medicine cabinet, shower, and the back of the door have now become a kind of modern art installation in our living room: shampoo perches on top of a bookcase, the toilet plunger is nestled in a paper bag near the television, and a shower curtain, razors, bath mat, toothpaste, and more provide set decoration. Much, much more, Reader.
Our kitchen is still functional, though it only comes in at around 25 square feet, and thus we usually rely on our foyer space to store our silverware, pots and pans, and non-perishable food items, not to mention our shoes, umbrellas, coats, and keys. One large shelf space and a rolling cart adjacent to the kitchen provide us with storage space below for trash bags, laundry detergent, and out of season hats and gloves, and also serve as flat surfaces on which to park plates that are waiting to be laden with dinner cooking on the stove, or a much needed space for chopping vegetables or stashing ingredients while making a recipe. It’s cozy and a little cramped, and under normal circumstances, it works just fine.
Now? Since we had to clear the foyer of most of these items before the construction began, and due to the fact that the remaining items have been wrapped securely in plastic, cooking is now somewhat of a scavenger hunt.
Looking to make gluten free spaghetti? No problem!
Get out the saucepan from the dishwasher
Walk the 12 feet down the plastic wrapped hall, through the plastic curtains set up to keep the dust at bay from the rest of the apartment, into the living room
Lift a couple of boxes stacked near the bookcase (making sure not to knock over the cat’s water dish) and open each one until you find the one with the pasta
Walk back through the plastic curtain, catching your bare leg on the blue painter’s tape and yelp in discomfort as it attempts to remove the hair on said leg, barely catching yourself from falling into the wall
Walk down the hall to the kitchen, and once the water boils, toss spaghetti in
Voila! But wait. Looking for a pasta spoon? Pasta sauce? Dried basil? More steps!
Walk the 12 feet down the plastic wrapped hall, through the plastic curtains set up to keep the dust at bay from the rest of the apartment, into the living room
Scour the box with the larger cooking utensils until you find the piece you are seeking, unearth the sauce from the Trader Joe’s bags that have replaced your pantry shelf, and toss every jar of seasoning aside until the basil reveals itself
Back through the plastic curtain you go. It’s like Narnia, but thanks for the heat wave we’re having in Boston, there is no scenic snowy landscape or majestic lion, save our cat Jack…
Ok, you get the idea.
The folks working on the renovation are absolutely wonderful. It’s hardly their fault that our apartment looks like a cyclone hit it, and honestly, because of their carefully wrapping things in plastic, we are protected from so much of the construction dust.
I’m grateful. And annoyed. And, as I’ve learned about myself over the years, rarely without a capacity to be curious about even the most inconvenient of circumstances.
At their end of their first work day of the project last Thursday, I emerged from our bedroom, having spent the day holed up there, working from home and doing my best to stay out of their way. The crew was gone when I gave the door a push around 3:30 in the afternoon. At first all I could see was a slice of hallway from behind the plastic sheet that separated the work zone from the rest of the apartment. Empty. Well, save for all the tools and the plastic everywhere.
I stepped through the plastic curtain, intent on using the bathroom now that the crew had wrapped for the day, and gratefully saw that they had kept their promise to leave the toilet as is. Closing the door to the bathroom, I suddenly became very aware of just how much work they had done that day while I had been on Zoom meetings.
This was the same room I’d spent time in several times a day for the last two years and yet, I’d never seen it like this. Stripped down to the essentials, imperfect as they were. I felt as if I had stepped into another universe when I had closed the bathroom door.
Here I stood, similar as ever (at least on the outside), within a familiar physical space that had in the span of eight hours become nearly unrecognizable to me.
Here I stood, suddenly privy to all the private pieces that undergirded the everyday objects once present in this space. The inner workings have always existed underneath the polished parts. Their existence, which I had always known intellectually, but had never experienced like this, evoked a specific sense of awe in me. Is it possible for plaster and lath to feel vulnerable? I felt like a voyeur somehow. How could I have missed all this? Been so fooled by the facade that I couldn’t imagine all that was underneath?
That’s what’s under the bathtub?
What lies behind the off-white tiles of the walls?
Where does that hole in the wall go now that the medicine cabinet no longer fills its place, and holy smokes, that ceiling is so much more layered than I could have ever imagined!
I feel dumbstruck by simply standing witness to a room being laid bare to its bones. The act of removing what we are used to seeing to reveal what we don’t often get to lay our eyes on feels…cruel? …sacred? …necessary?
How many times have these walls been taken down to their bones during their lifetime? Our building was constructed in 1910, so I can’t imagine it hasn’t been taken to task at least a few times in the years since. How many iterations of itself had it experienced? What did it look forward to receiving, and what did it mourn having been torn away? What was coming tomorrow? In 50 years? Did it indeed feel vulnerable in its spareness, with nothing to hide behind? Or was it exhilarating to shake loose the rusted bits, shed its shabby skin, and be free to simply be as it is, in this moment? To feel excited about all that was to come?
Then, the fear goes deep and I begin to run through a well-worn line of thinking in my brain: Will this bathroom actually ever come back together again? What if it’s stuck like this - FOREVER?
I feel so much wonder and awe about the temporary state of the bathroom. I have also tripped over the plastic curtain approximately 38 times today alone, so yes, I might be frustrated about it as well. Like the bones of what lies beneath and the veil that shields them from our eyes most days, both states can exist at once.
In these moments of physical mess, when essential physical space is taken down to its bones and the well-worn paths on the carpets no longer lead us straight from point A to point B, I find I’m curious about what happens when, emotionally and spiritually, we are taken right down to our bones. Faced with the dissolution of what we use to cover our most fragile bits with, accepting the invitation to remove the spiritual clothing we wear most days, and forced to forfeit the ____ that truly makes the foundations of who we are.
When I’m taken right down to my bones, I find myself asking the same questions of myself that I have of my in-progress bathroom.
How many times have I been taken down to my bones during my life? Since I was born in 1983, there has been countless renovations and restorations on my physical, psychological, and spiritual self. If I was determined to count, how many iterations of myself have I experienced? What do I look forward to receiving during these times of transformation, and what do I mourn having torn away? What will be renovated within me tomorrow? In 50 years? Do I feel nothing but vulnerable in my spareness during these emotional demos, with nothing to hide behind? Or is it exhilarating as well - even just a tiny bit - to shake loose the rusted bits, shed some shabby skin, and be free to simply be as I am, in this moment? To feel excited about all that is to come?
The same fear twists in deep: Will I actually ever come back together again? What if I’m stuck like this - FOREVER?
In the last two years, I’ve been taken down to my bones in many ways. I’ve been built back in different ways, not entirely the same. But perhaps still whole?
The decline of my dad’s decades long battle with leukemia and Lewy Body Dementia. Feeling raw for weeks with anticipatory grief and at the same time, needing to remain grounded enough to make the highest stakes end of life decisions for my dad while dealing long distance with doctors and nurses who were not providing us with comprehensive, transparent care. I wouldn’t wish such an October on anyone.
Health challenges of my own. For the last ten years, I’ve been seeking out support in the midst of an overwhelming and often unhelpful traditional medical community. I’ve felt gratitude recently having found thought partners who have helped me to better live with and begin to heal from psoriasis, OCD, and anxiety. I’ve burned with terror as I’ve tried to shed old patterns that don’t serve my wellbeing and cultivate the courage to build new habits that do.
Griefs I’m not yet ready to talk about, and the uncertainty these evoke around what my life looks like moving forward (don’t get me started on how much I detest the question, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”) have been looming so large lately. I’ve questioned where I belong, what work I’ll be able to do that allows me to both live my passions and also pay my bills, and ultimately, if the things I create are making any kind of impact on others and the world. I’m navigating what it means to get a chance to chase something I’ve desired for ever so long, while at the same time needing to accept that all the work in the world doesn’t guarantee my vision of tomorrow. I feel the tenderness that comes with looking the very deepest parts of me in the eye and considering how they might need repair, replacement.
I’m guessing that you, too, have been taken down to your bones in some way this year as well.
When a space or a spirit is taken right down to the studs, when the order and flow of our habits and feelings feel out of whack, where do we go? What and who do we seek out when it all feels like it can never come back together again (and may never actually do so), whole and hopeful, and better than it was before?
Do you find it easy to surf the waves that come with this paring down, and the mess that the impending transformation necessitates? Or do you try and tame the chaos and double down on controlling, intent on doing whatever you can to remain the master of your physical and psychic space?
Where do you go in moments like these?
I find I’ve been reaching for the familiar during these times. I do find comfort in dear family (chosen and biological) whom I know will be there to commiserate, offer cheer, and assure me that there are still put together places that I belong.
I also find that I sink deeply into writing, reading, and listening to music when I need to feel rooted amidst renovations (of all kinds). Books, songs, and films that have become beloved friends are some of the first things I turn to when the turbulence tests me. I need to speak to and hear from all those souls who have gone before me and who spent time in these in-between spaces. The thin places are surprisingly crowded with travelers if you know where to look.
I think of Louisa May Alcott recovering from typhoid pneumonia in her bed in Concord during the height of the Civil War, not sure if she would live to see her 31st birthday, let alone ever experience the joy of a run into Boston as she had done just a few years before.
I think of Rumi, the Sufi poet whose words I often fall asleep reading in bed at the end of a long day, and how he traveled 2,000 miles from Iran to Turkey as his family migrated from one home to another. I am certain he would understand what it means to do your best to keep seeking beauty even as you walked (literally) through the unknown.
I think of Emily Dickinson, who so loved the world, and who also loved her solitude. “I am out with lanterns / looking for myself.” I say this line of her poetry to myself many times during the present season, as a gentle reminder that I am not the only one wandering around in the dark, trying to bring her own light and hope that it’s enough to see something worth glimpsing.
I’ve been trying to sing most days, and sometimes I walk into the bathroom to share my song to the bare walls there. Almost as if I can fill the gaping cracks with enough lyrics of beauty and love (never mind my crackly second soprano voice), I can ensure that when the walls are once more covered with drywall and paint, they will be all the stronger for the surgery they underwent.
I want this soon-to-be, beautiful, new bathroom. I want to keep becoming myself. I don’t, however, love the mess that accompanies them. Yet, because of these desires, I have to agree to exist in the non-existent spaces, in the in-between mess that transformation requires in the meantime. If I let it, the mess, this slog of a stretch in between “before” and “after”, becomes holy. I can see this time as the step I wish I could skip or the sacred space in which I keep working on growing my patience and my faith that all this is temporary.
I haven’t stepped into a formal place of worship in a long time, and don’t feel the need to; these everyday spaces that forge my faith and patience and direction are church. This adversity is the altar.
I’ve gained more patience when it comes to moving through the in-between space between projects, goals, and seasons of life with a little less kicking and screaming and a tad more acceptance, but like the bathroom, I’m a work in progress. I have learned that I can endure when I have a strong sense of certainty that allowing myself to be taken down to my bones will pay off in some way. Nothing is guaranteed of course, but when I’m in the midst of a chaotic teaching semester, I can reasonably rely on the semester to eventually wrap up, conclude, and deliver me into a different season.
When I work towards a dream that’s less clear, where the odds are stacked against me, I’m realizing that it takes a different kind of determination to get down to the studs. Is it safe to tear them away? What will I find? I don’t know if and when they will be rebuilt. Yet, I have to try and believe that there is meaning tucked into the pulling apart of it all, regardless of whether or not it ever comes back together. The messy middle can’t be any less meaningful just because there is a makeover that might not ever materialize.
The bathroom is now just a few days away from being finished and functional. The workarounds we’ve put into place to cope with the construction will soon be unnecessary, and I am preparing myself to need some time to unlearn them. Inconvenient though they were, they have gotten to be familiar. I’ll be unlearning and relearning and reporting back here, I’m sure.
Perhaps not surprisingly, I love to journal as a way of reflecting on and encouraging myself through all the seasons my life has brought me so far, and want to offer you a journal prompt (below) on the experience of being taken down to your bones, if it feels supportive for you.
I’ve opened up the comments below to all subscribers, free and paid, and would love to hear where you go and what you do when things get pulled away from the rooms of your life. Perhaps we can find a way to ground each other during such times of turbulence and transition.
Journal Prompt: Write about a time when you (or a physical space you spend time in) were taken right down to the studs. Describe what was pulled away, taken apart. What did it feel like in your body? What thoughts keep running circles in your mind and heart?
Reflect on where you go when you are taken down to the studs of yourself. Do you jump to conclusions that you will be stuck in this messy, liminal space forever, or do you find that leaning into faith that this, too, shall pass?
How do you get curious about this time? Is there a way you have found to commune with this thin time without trying to grasp for a quick fix? What was one thing that helped you to feel 10% more grounded?