A Mustard Bath,

and thoughts on motherhood.

There’s a different feeling in the house, a late September feeling. The air has lost its summer weight, but the radiators aren’t yet humming with heat. I wrap myself in a blanket when I sit down to read. The toilet seat is cold. 

I took a hot bath this morning. As the tub ran I made my bed and hung my house coat on the back of the door. I picked up thick socks off the floor, the ones I wear when I’m cold at night but tear off sometime around dawn, and put them back inside my nightside table. When the bath is full, I sprinkle Dr. Singha’s Mustard Bath through the water. I bought it at a local Nordic spa; I’m always tempted to buy products when I leave, anything to recreate that post-spa feeling at home. And mustard feels right in the bathroom. I grew up with a mirror hanging in the bathroom that my parents bought at a market in New Orleans. The mirror had a Colman’s Mustard label printed on it wrapped around an image of King George V. It’s been a week of Royal reflection, it seemed apropos.

The powder fizzes through the bath like seltzer and turns the water a deep neon chartreuse. Eucalyptus, rosemary, thyme and mint fill the room. Mustard seed is in there too, promising increased blood flow, calm and rejuvenation. I choose to believe it. 

The window is open, just enough to hear the seagulls and feel the freshness in the air. My skin is cool from moving through the room barefoot. When I lower myself into the bath, I imagine my skin cracking like a cold egg in boiling water. Instead every follicle explodes. My hypothalamus is shooting endorphins through my skin, sending messages of gratitude for this moment, the cold skin against hot water, this juxtaposition. I sink back, letting the sensation grow as the water level creeps up my lower back, my shoulder blades then tickles my shoulders. I know this feeling will only last a few seconds. My body will acclimatize, the high will subside. I close my eyes and hold on. 

There was a time when I took a baby into the bath with me, a time when this moment was rushed. I’d put him in a bouncy chair on the bathroom floor while I ran the bath, washed my face, stuffed diapers into the diaper bin and put tiny onesies into a drawer. When the bath was ready I’d lift the baby out of his chair and together we’d lower into the unsatisfying water. My toes wanted to turn on the hot tap, twist it left, just to get a hit of hot. But instead we’d splash and play and get soapy until the baby became a wet noodle, slipping through my hands. Then we’d get out and dry off. Sometimes I couldn’t get the diaper on in time and a wet warmth would rush down my skin. So we’d dip back into the water, a quick genuflection to wash away the pee, and we’d dry ourselves again. 

I remember writing stories in my head back then. I was co-authoring a series of cookbooks; there were recipes to test and headnotes to write. My body operated on a physical plane while my mind was somewhere else. I wiped food from highchair trays and swept up crushed Cheerios while sorting out words in my head. I pegged laundry and wrote recipes. I’d nurse a baby and edit the method. Sometimes, when a university student would come between classes to babysit, I’d have a few thoughts ready to pour onto the page. If the words were lost somewhere, perhaps still floating in dishwater, I’d ask them to test soup with me instead. Together we would tweak it, then I’d sneak away and note the changes. Sometimes I would use that time to grocery shop. Meet a friend. Wander. But the clock would pull me back home, and eventually, I’d get the work done. 

There were days I resented the work. I wanted to be left alone with no obligations beyond the rhythm of my house. I wanted to sink into motherhood, to pay full attention, to respect it and give it everything.

There were days I resented the work. I wanted to say yes to all the freelance jobs, leave the house in the morning and come back in the afternoon when children were waking up from naps with sleepy, happy faces, arms reaching with forgiveness. 

I am telling now, not showing. I feel lost in the telling, like I’m swimming in the dark. I like to have a scene to cling to. I’ve always needed to capture domesticity with words. I want to smell those days, taste them, give them texture and shape. And therein lies the challenge - how does a mother write about her days at home if she’s not there to live them? They feed each other, the physical and the cerebral, and bear witness to one another. 

The old house with the Ikea butcher block countertop and the stainless steel backsplash behind the gas stove. Boys faces at the counter, sleep in their eyes, waiting. The sturdy cork floor that hid crumbs and barely curled that time the sink overflowed. The front hall dresser with tiny drawers just big enough for toddler socks, and the epiphany to always keep toddler socks in the dresser by the front door. The day I painted that dresser on the lawn one summer morning, using a can of leftover trim colour I found in the basement. The train table filled with Thomas and Friends. The Bose stereo on the counter with a CD player opening just wide enough for a Breton cracker to slide in with ease. The doors that opened onto the garden and at night reflected small bodies dancing. The soups that scorched in the Le Creuset wedding pot. The fights about emptying the dishwasher so the other person didn’t have to. The north facing garden rimmed with goutweed, and the blackness of the evenings in winter. This was our stage, our theatre.

So I carried on for years, capturing homelife in a patchy way until one day I found myself soaking in a hot mustard bath on a weekend morning, undisturbed. And when the water cooled I used my toes to twist the tap for another hit of heat. And then I wrote it down.

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The Food Podcast is back! The first episode of the season stars cookbook author, teacher, community activist and all around wonderful human Julie Van Rosendaal. You can listen to the episode over here. xo