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my bed

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i am having a lot of feelings.

i spent about 9 hours today kantha stitching.  i'm tired.  but not so tired as to not have a lot of feelings, still.

Every day.  Every single day of my life, i am thankfull for my bed.    My bed.  which has been different through the years.  Deanna sent me a video with the music from the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.  that took me back to the bed, which was actually a crib,  in Detroit, Michigan.  when i was up to the age of 4. 

Since then, i have had many beds.  slept in them with different people.  and in recent years, have had a growing sense of gratitude for my bed.

This one, is layered futon mattresses.  when my daughter was here a few days ago and slept in my bed while i slept on the futon couch, she said it was like sleeping in the ocean.  Swishy. 

every night, every single night.  EVERY SINGLE NIGHT i lay down upon that swishy ocean bed,

i give voice to a true sense of gratitude.  i can go there, lay my self down and be assured that i will dream there till morning comes.  there is no war in my road outside.  there are no desperate people who will come through my door and wake me. 

THIS is HUGE.

i like crunchy sheets and pillow cases.  i can find them at the Thrift Shop.  i don't know who donates them.  but they are easily available.  they are the stiff cotton kind.  expensive.  i have extra.  right now i have a bed cover that is filled with some kind of stuffing.  the top and bottom are cotton.  i got it at a yard sale some years ago.  have been looking at it for a while now.  i keep taking it to the laundromat and washing it and it keeps it's integrity.  so, even when it's not uhhhh,  organic, inside, it has integrity.  so ok.  someday when it begins to falter, i will mend it.  but for now i think i will just say thank you to it. 

 

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30 responses to “my bed”

  1. deanna7trees Avatar
    deanna7trees

    i was just thinking this morning that the 2 best times of the day (in general)are when i get up from bed in the morning and when i go to bed at night. i get up with so much energy to do the things i love to do and when the day is done, i’m so tired and crawling into that soft bed feels so good. it is good to be grateful and to say thank you.

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  2. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    yes.
    yes, dear bed. dry bed. safe bed. fragrant of Tide
    laundry soap bed. dear bed. no war outside bed. no
    fear bed. sheets on the clothes line bed.
    how lucky.
    how many women do not have this kind of bed.

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  3. handstories Avatar
    handstories

    a bed with integrity, what a wonderful thing. thinking of sylvia plath’s children’s poem/book- “the bed book”- it’s been a long time, but i recall that it was all about fanciful beds. sleep tight. sweet dreams.

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  4. deb Avatar
    deb

    ooo its an hour and a half until I can creep across the hall and burrow into my nest…jealous and sleepy.

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  5. helen salo Avatar
    helen salo

    I have a magnet I bought out west that says “yah sleep!” My favorite thing, because if I had war, terror, worry, I would not be able to sleep, thus am extremely thankful for sleep. My mother grew up with war and I hear enough stories to be thankful for even a couple hours of solid sleep! Yah! Sleep!

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  6. jude Avatar
    jude

    this is what i like about large cloth. layers of cloth to nestle in. the man is building a large platform for the loft, enough to hold 2 queen size futons side by side. which are now staked. (the loft is over an unheated room so the floor is too cold to spread them directly on it. an ocean of bed, yes, exactly. and coma 2 in process. and grandma’s and woven linen sheets in need of mending. and a feather bed which my son just gave me. oh. imagine having no bed. i once had to sleep curled on the floor with no blanket. a story to be told one day maybe. hard to dream that way.

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  7. Eva Ucgatwork Avatar
    Eva Ucgatwork

    Hi Grace,
    As I have been working since the early hours of the day – I am longing for my bed already!
    But first: a nice long walk to our favourite pizza place (it’s raining…hasn’t been raining for quite some time…we like walking in the rain!) and then:
    the cosy feather bed is waiting!!!! I love autumn because of many things. But one of them is taking out the feather beds – light and soft..MAGIC!
    Goodnight, sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite..
    eva

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  8. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    Eva….tell about the feather beds. where do you keep
    them when they are not in use? how big are they? are
    they to cover you? or do you sleep ON them? how long
    do they last?
    oh, TELL!
    xoxo

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  9. Deb G Avatar
    Deb G

    My paternal grandparents gave my parents a wrought-iron bed for me to sleep on when I was three. It’s the bed I’ve slept on for most of my life. The springs gave out when I was a teenager (my brothers and I probably bounced on them too many times). My dad cut a piece of plywood to replace them. I have a futon for a mattress. And of course all my blankets. It’s a good place for dreaming and I am always thankful for it’s comfort…

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  10. Yvonne Avatar
    Yvonne

    9 hours of stitching!! I really relate to feeling gratitude for living in peaceful circumstances and having my comfortable bed to dream in. I often say when I climb in, ‘I love this bed’.

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  11. Eva Ucgatwork Avatar
    Eva Ucgatwork

    Well, those feather beds are very light …but fluffy and even looking at them you feel warm…they last, well I wouldn’t say forever, but for years and years. When I was a child, people were poor after the war…so they lasted like forever! They cover you, it’s difficult to describe.For me feather beds a a reminder of a beautiful childhood – winter mornings, when you woke up and studied the ice-crystals on the bedroom window (NO heating!! The oven was in the living room and there was one in the kitchen for cooking).Bedrooms were terribly cold. You don’t have ice-crystals on the window any more…long gone!
    So a feather bed was the only thing that kept you warm.
    I once stayed in a (posh) hotel on Vancouver Island…they have extraordinarily thick feather beds…it’s the ultimate treat!I keep them rolled up tight in a plastic bag over the summer. No problem!
    I’ve been carried away…sorry..pizza was okay, the walk was great…time for bed! The alarm clock strikes at 5 in the morning!
    Enjoy some featherly dreams tonight,
    eva

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  12. Nanette Avatar
    Nanette

    Is this a woman thing that we love our beds? I tell mine every day I love it…sometimes more than once, and stroke it with gratitude when I snuggle in at night, or lay stretching and luxuriating in the mornings, while it’s still dark out and birds are just starting to wake, and I know I don’t have to get up yet. Some evenings, as I go back and forth past my bedroom, I tell it…soon, soon, and I’ll be with you again and I can’t wait…not so much to sleep, but to be in that womb, cocoon. I have an organic lates mattress, it holds it’s warmth, and stays cool through hot, hot, summers. I no longer share my bed, apart from the kitties…wouldn’t have it any other way.
    I always send a prayer out to those who don’t have a warm, dry safe bed and give thanks for mine.

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  13. Linda Avatar
    Linda

    we have a homeless man that lives in the park across from us. every day he walks all day… many miles. i worry about him at night. it rains so much here and the wind is awful. i think of him and where he sleeps when i am safe in my bed.
    when i worked nights at the hospital, we used to talk about our beds. in the middle of the night we would be longing for them and tell about our sheets and pillows and feather beds.
    i also love my bed. today i cam down with a cold. been on the couch and not able to even stitch. so off to bed soon..
    good thing to talk about.

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  14. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    interesting to me that this Bed thing has come up now.
    i don’t know why yet.
    it’s always there. sometimes more than others, but
    always there.
    it’s Bed, but it’s also symbolic for a woman’s Safe Place.
    or maybe too, a childs.

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  15. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    burrow. yes. burrow.

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  16. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    war and sleep can’t.

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  17. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    curled on the floor with no blanket.

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  18. Nance Avatar
    Nance

    Oh beds… Glorious safe sanctuary… When I was little and we visited my great aunties, we slept on feather beds. My sister who was little slept in the blanket box which is where I was told I had slept before her. I slept on the window seat of a bay window on a bed of feathers with hand made woolen quilts on top. Toasty warm and cozy. One of my aunts would lay with me until I was asleep. And yes the window did have ice crystals. Fairy frost!

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  19. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    you made me want pizza. i rarely want pizza, but now
    i WANT PIZZA.
    so feather beds are the Down Comforters here. ok. i know.
    and yes, they a light and so Effective!
    i have no heat at night so know very well these things…
    frosted window panes etc.

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  20. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    try two futons.

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  21. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    well…not straight. i came and went. but it was the
    total focus of the day.

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  22. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    HI!!! Nanette……another Australian woman!!!
    yes. my bed is now my own. it took many years and many
    experiments to come to realize that i prefer my singular
    existence. for me, there is nothing to compare to
    sleeping alone.
    i know that others do not share this happiness, really
    love the communal bed. but for me, it’s total joy.

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  23. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    homeless. yes.
    and not homeless, but circumstances that are fearful.
    maybe even worse?, i wonder. to actually have a bed, but
    to not know what might happen during the night?
    i think a lot about this.

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  24. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    this is a beautiful beautiful image…asleep in the
    window seat with a loving auntie till sleep.

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  25. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    Sanctuary
    one’s bed
    Sanctuary

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  26. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    pillow

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  27. Jacky Avatar
    Jacky

    What a wonderful bed story. I love the sounds of your swishy, ocean bed and all of your dream time.
    Especially I love your feelings of gratitude. We have a lot to be thankful for dont we?
    Sending love across the ocean to you Grace.
    Jacky xox

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  28. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    I want pizza and then a feather bed!

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  29. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Haha Yvonne, I say almost the same thing, “I love bed!”

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  30. Drucilla Pettibone Avatar
    Drucilla Pettibone

    i’ve been having lots of bad feelings about myself for not wanting to leave my bed. i don’t want to leave it in the morning or even in the afternoon. i just emerged and am wondering why i can’t get up. maybe it’s the season. but i do share this deep love and gratitude for the safe womb bed. xo

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