Queen of Rambles

What is your magic bed? Would it be in a tree house with a window in the make shift plywood ceiling so you could gaze up at the stars all night long while swatting mosquitos from your eight-year-old arms in red flannel pajamas? Would it be a bed made of un-meltable chocolate with soft frothy whipped cream pillows so you could fall asleep and dream cocoa flavored dreams? Would it be a huge king size bed with lavendar flowered cotton sheets and sleepy kitten sleeping on your pillow? Would it be on a sailboat with a mysterious secret agent wearing high heeled black boots and nothing else? Hmmmm….. Right now for me, my magic bed would be a hammock hung about 2 feet above a calm ocean. The waves lapping gently while I read a book, the sun warming me but not too hot. Maybe a cabana boy is bringing me a cherry mojito. Awwww…. I love the power of a day dream.

What’s the most un-magic bed you’ve ever slept in? For me that would be in the car. You know on those long road trips where you don’t really have the money to get a hotel room so you pull into a rest stop and attempt to fall asleep to the sounds of truck generators and June bugs smashing themselves against your window. The uncomfortable seats never fully recline and the sharp metal seat belt buckle cuts into your side if you attempt to sleep in any other position than on your back. Oh, those were the days. It’s good not to be poor any more.

Something I’m proud of is that I can sleep just about anywhere. On the ground, on the couch with separating cushions, on a sloaped listing bed, even in the car… if I’m tired enough it really doesn’t matter. My husband on the other hand is quite anal about his bed. The sheets must be perfectly neat and tidy. The blankets must be at least a foot shorter than the top sheet, so it can fold over the blankets and stay that way all night long. Me on the other hand, I’m a nester. I love nothing better than to have no sheets at all, just a clean comforter (with a cover that’s washable of course) and a bottom sheet and let the comforter be any old which way I choose. That way I can stick one leg out (to moderate my temperature) and cuddle up with the other. I don’t care which way I’m turned, it’s all good. When I wake up it’s just a quick tug here and there and the bed’s completely made! No tucking or pulling or neat tidy hospital corners… forget that. Of course I compromise. Afterall I want to stay married.

Maybe it’s because I was raised in a messy house. I’m okay with mess. I don’t like my house to be messy but it doesn’t bother me too much to be around mess. After living with a roommate with OCD I’ve picked up a few neat freak habits, but still I’m amazed that when I do go home to visit my mom the mess doesn’t bother me. It’s kind of a novelty. My niece and I slept in her sewing room the last weekend while I was out there. The sewing room is really a black hole for anything that doesn’t belong in the rest of the house. That means boxes of fabric and notions and wrapping paper and craft supplies… all overflowing in all directions. Pillows and blankets and stuffed animals thrown this way and that on a futon that is wedged between furniture protruding from all sides of the room. Really there wasn’t much room to sleep on the floor. My little niece’s body was wrapped around one leg of a card table. Even though there was only about a foot of space on the futon between my niece and a dresser I climbed into the blankets and pillows and fell fast asleep.

I guess a bed is a magic as you make it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2003 at 2:04 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.