Edgar Degas, La Toilette, c. 1884-1886
"The door of my childhood bedroom didn’t have a lock on it, so I spent a lot of time in the bathroom. Every human wants privacy, but no one more so than a teenage girl. Though I ostensibly shared the bathroom with my little brother, I claimed it as my domain. I spent hours reading on the tiled floor, my body bracketed between the sink and the door. In my memory, it’s a slightly steamy, always warm, watery place—but I never spent that much time in the bath. If I wasn’t reading or sulking after a fight with my parents, I was performing those charmless beauty rituals teenage girls are so fond of—shoving my A-cup breasts together in the mirror trying to make cleavage magically appear; waxing my legs with an at-home sugaring kit I’d surreptitiously tipped into the family shopping cart; dyeing the tips of my hair hot pink. ..."
The Paris Review
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