Bedding Kenny

Sharing a bed with someone is something I suppose I looked forward to with a mix of excitement and apprehension, growing up. I had a nice twin bed in a room I shared with sis (who had her own identical one), complete with iron rods to hold the white mosquito net, and a handy window shelf where I could place my nightly collection of novels & textbooks & notebooks & puzzlebooks. I usually had my bed near a wall, and would slip my feet out of the m. net and run it up and down the wall. I loved being near a wall, it somehow was (in fact it still is), the ultimate in luxury at bed-time for me. Even in those days (and times) when I did the unthinkable and adjourned to parents room, I ensured I was on the wall-end.

Then it happened. You know, moving away to another country, city, marriage, motherhood, middle-age, and so on. So today you will find me wedged in a sliver of space between the crib (whose one side is removed and the bottom raised, so it is level with our bed), and the bed. The springs on the bed are ruined beyond repair. There is, recently, a faint smell of su-su (it is possible that this is imagined, we are quite rubber-sheeted) thanks to the onset of night-time diaper training. The sheets are usually all crumply. I seem to have several pairs of arms, legs, feet, all over me. I most certainly have thin long tiny fingers scratching my upper arms at various points in the night. My sheet (to wear a-top) is always missing; or balled away at the bottom of the bed. My pillows under the foot (I need to have this ever since that long ago time when the doc advised me to elevate my foot to help heal the ankle sprain; that was about twelve years ago, but still..) have been kicked out on to the floor. There is snoring. There are those long legs leaning out of the bed and threatening to trip me during my nightly visits to porcelain goddess-land. There is a tendency for the air-conditioning to be on for (a)too long or (b)too short a time. There is the annoying red flashing light on the blackberry. There is the harsh blackberry alarm (on the other hand, my own mobile has a refreshingly cool alarm sound).

All this I can take with equanimity. I am able now, after several years of practice, to step over sleeping forms with my eyes closed. I always have an extra sheet under my head-pillow for situations when the original one is missing in action. I have cruelty that gives me the permission to push away scratching fingers from my arms; I have the will-power to not look at the oh-so-cute sleeping face next to me while pushing away. I have the strength to bodily roll the 6ft2in sleeping snoring form to the other side (although it complains occasionally that its back aches thanks to my rolling). I can almost fit into the crib myself, in situations when the war zone that is our bed becomes too tough to handle. I am open-minded about my foot-pillow. But oh, if only, if only, I could have a wall. A cool white-washed wall to hug, run my feet on, trace imaginary butterflies and flowers on...