The Soap Ritual

I love washing my hands. I love taking showers. I love that clean feeling afterward. Yes, there is probably a little germaphobe in there somewhere. Maybe even a touch of obsessive behavior. But it is more than that.

There is something remarkable about the fact that we live in a world filled with dirt and germs and chaos, and somehow we invented a way to wash some of it away. You can step into a shower dirty and step out fresh. It is almost like a tiny baptism every day.

Think about that for a second. Imagine living thousands of years ago. You are walking through dirt, moss, smoke, sweat and weather. At some point, someone must have stepped into a cold stream and thought, “This is refreshing.” And maybe, somewhere in that moment, they wondered if there was a better way.

So when I walk into a bathroom and see soap, I do not think of it as ordinary. I think of it as a small miracle.

Sometimes you can find me standing in a store smelling bars of soap. My wife, Cori, will take me into Bath & Body Works right here in tropical Medina, and I will immediately head for the sink just to wash my hands and try whatever soap they have out.

“What are you doing?” she’ll ask.

“Trying the soap.”

Have you ever visited someone’s house, washed your hands and suddenly thought, “Where did they get this incredible soap?” My mother-in-law is like that. Every time I visit her house, she is ahead of the curve.

But a few years ago, something happened that turned my love of soap into something closer to a ritual. Cori started buying me these big bricks of what I can only describe as man soap. You know the kind: fresh-cut wood, pine forest, cracked ice and smoke, bourbon barrel and mesquite.

So I started doing something with them. I began matching the scents to the seasons. Spring has a scent. Summer has a scent. Fall has a scent. Winter has a scent. And I refuse to use a scent that does not belong to the season we are in.

But here is where the ritual comes in. Every time I near the end of a season, I look at the soap before I shower and ask myself: Is it time?

Usually the bar is down to a tiny sliver about the size of my pinky. That means the moment has arrived.

I take the last piece of soap out of the shower. Then I reach into the cabinet and pull out the new bar. It is still inside the box. I stand over the sink and hold the tiny piece of soap for a moment, almost like I am saying goodbye to the season. Then I drop it down the drain.

I turn on the hot water and watch it slowly melt away, just like the season fading. Then I lift the new box. The sun is usually coming through the window. I open the box slowly and pull out the fresh bar of soap.

A new scent. A new season.

I hold it there for a quiet moment.

Now, who does that?

But maybe your ritual is not soap. Maybe it is coffee in the same mug every morning. Maybe it is the walk you take around the neighborhood. Maybe it is the way you open the windows on the first warm day of spring, or the song you play when you are driving home from somewhere important.

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We all have something.

So yes, maybe my soap ritual is a little strange. But I think it is also deeply human. And if you happen to see a bar of soap in a store sometime this week, think of me. You might just discover a new ritual of your own.