The unmade bed

March 3rd, 2013…

I open one eye, check if it is anywhere near daylight and get up anyway in search of coffee. Maid service would be nice, but although she wears the regulation black and white uniform, Ani makes terrible coffee and I would not trust her with a tray. Or the coffee. And she can’t curtsey.

So I’m awake. I really wish I was one of those lovely people who can turn over and go back to sleep, but I’m not. As soon as the morning strokes my eyes with fingers of light, the mind starts heaving sleepy gears into action and before you know it a train of thought is merrily chugging along at full steam.

Of course, the body may not be so happy about it, lazily appreciating that perfectly-made-bed feeling. You know, the one that is warm, cosy and has never, ever felt so good. The one that makes straightening the covers as you leave them a philosophical question on why we bother to make the bed at all. After all, we have just left perfection, why would we seek to change it by removing all trace of its presence. We leave behind only a vague and fleeting memory and an elusive yearning to return and find that enveloping beauty, that place where the conscious mind lets go and flies into a realm of miracles and impossibilities, into dreams where imagination is the only limitation.

But of course, once you have subtracted yourself from the pile of covers, that perfection has been irretrievably altered. It has been changed, lacking your essential warmth and presence. It is no longer complete, though it is itself still whole without you in it, a testament to its own existence and purpose. Yet the essential ingredient is lacking to fulfil that purpose. It requires your presence, your surrender to its embrace, your agreement and submission to its invitation before it is again truly whole.

One could speculate about why we have to leave it at all, but obviously, there is work to do, people to meet, love and laughter beyond its confines as well as, occasionally, within them. A bed is such an intimate place, on so many levels really. Who has not curled up in misery, tears streaming and heart-aching within its comforting embrace? Or played there as a child plays, full of light and simple joy? Or dreamed those private dreams of the heart.

Our beds seem to know us, moulding to our shape over the years, welcoming us after absence. Even when the mattress is getting a little well worn and the springs get uncomfortable, digging into the tender bits. It doesn’t matter whether they are clothed in silks and rich colour, or simple and white, there is something about them that speaks of home.

We have established, of course, that my mind wanders some convoluted pathways occasionally, so it will come as no surprise that I began comparing my relationship with my bed to that between the Divine and the soul. I’m old fashioned, I call It God.

At birth, I left Perfection, though It remains. It holds me through the dark times and shares the bright ones with me. I return to It, awake to Its embrace daily, knowing as I go through the journey of life, learning its ways, that It awaits my return, enriched with experience, encounters, love and tears. In Its warmth, as my surfaces sink into that melding, I learn to see behind events and find deeper meaning and beauty, as I trust It to hold me and keep me safe, knowing that in the intimacy and comfort there is rest and peace. There is no separation when the heart knows that perfection awaits.