slivy toves
Maybe I am a slivy tove? or a momerath? I feel I might be when I am stealthily executing detective work in the streets or on the tram or even from the comfort of my bed. I’ve become expect at stealthy work from my bed…which gets me to thinking about beds and what beds mean for so many people…beds for dreaming, beds for being born in…oh and deathbeds too. I believe the Victorians would sleep sitting upright in beds as opposed to heads on pillows because they felt sleeping in a bed was too much like sleeping in a coffin. That’s why their beds ‘look’ shorter. I wish I could be one of those people that could sleep anywhere when they were tired…on a plane, on someone’s shoulder, on someone’s dusty floor…but I can’t do that. I have spent days in bed recently..I managed to chop onions for pasta in bed, write an essay, write a short story, send out emails, brush a cat, brush my hair, stitch a hem, and get several foot massages. Yes, other than the fear of bed sores or calling out ‘GILBERT’ (some savvy Johnny Depp movie buffs will get that one) I find bed to be such a pleasurable place to muse and create on the world. And when I’m on those excrutiating 10 hour shifts at work I think of bed, of the curling up, of the book. You know when you meet a lover and you get it on fiercely and for the first six weeks ( or is it still going???) cups and saucers and packets of things, and books and magazines all pile up like a sea around you both? And sleeping together is strange and at first you wake up in the middle of the night and begin talking again. You pick up the conversation and continue until the dawn. You’ve jibber jabbered til dawn and then you gingerly step off the boat and go make a toastie and a cup of tea and bring it back like treasures from far away lands to eat like birds over your shared meal. You twist and turn and find hidden spaces…like endless promenades of sheets and pillows, in an empire of sleep, sex, rest, and intoxicating love.
Misbah Wolf 