 Thoughts from a Queen-Sized Bed
Here is a lively personal account of life in a long marriage—what you get and give up for that commitment. Mixing honesty, wit, and reflection (because that is what a shared life takes), the author depicts the issues, big and small, of trying to make two lives (not to mention children, parents, relatives, and friends) fit together. Negotiating monogamy, moths in the closet, breast cancer, heart attack, the powers of meatloaf, and how to survive a six-hour car ride together when “someone” forgot the map—all are considered in 34 linked essays that started “as thoughts between dozing and waking that rouse…like a soldier hearing gunshots.” The book offers no formulas, case studies, or how-to lists for conquering problems. Instead, readers are invited, as if friends, through a window of thoughts and events that shows a real marriage at work—one that tries to satisfy the needs for independence and the loyalties of love.
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Excerpt
4 A.M. Preface
I am lying in bed, watching white vines climb pale blue walls as they have, day and night, ever since we bought this house with its indestructible wallpaper. Thirty-one years and not a ripple, a bump, a tear, as if we'd just moved in. I imagine a full moon out there behind the room-darkening shades, its shine a soft stage light making papered vines dance in shadow. I imagine crisp stars, Orion's belt touching the tops of cherry trees lining our side of the street.
Beside me, Stu, my husband of thirty-nine years is snoring, not his loud sitcom snores but soft rhythmic sighs trying to be reasonable. I wrap myself around him for comfort, but am too hot to stay that way unless I fall asleep in minutes. The goose down comforter ordered by catalogue as "summer weight" is a fake--it's as hot as the old one--and I sweat even with a window open two inches in February. My husband resists this nightly air and wears flannel pajamas in revenge; I, naked, want to feel his skin.
If we had a king-sized bed, or twin beds, or slept in separate rooms, I would have more space to be restless. I could put on a light, read. In my daughter's old room, I could dial old boyfriends from last night's dreams. If I were out of town, I could throw off all covers, take a noisy bath, and sprawl across the bed, unrestrained, in a Marriott or Hyatt silence that lets me sleep but then wakes me, as if I had lost something essential.
I turn my pillow to the cold side and roll towards the weight that pulls me to the center of the bed. I do not listen, as I did in childhood, for footsteps climbing old stairs of fear to get me. I do not run my fingers up and down a papered seam, wishing that yellow rosebuds were warriors with swords drawn.
Bodies disappoint us, we will not live forever, parents cannot protect us, we are getting fat. Yes, yes, I know all that but..., I say before daybreak, getting out of bed to write down game plans before I forget them and they disappear into air.
"Where are you going?" Stu asks, putting his near-sighted face two inches from his alarm clock that reads 5:03 a.m. in white digitals. "Into my study."
"Wake me at seven, and I'll warm you up," he says, as I put on socks so my feet don't get numb beside the lukewarm heating grates that have just kicked on.
The dogwood branches scrape the window panes, and I whisper, "Turn over," because my husband is now on his back and I have nothing to hold onto. He moans, obeys, and I press against his butt and spine, focusing on his breathing, in and out, in and out, until his rhythm becomes mine and I doze for another half hour.
The essays in this book began in this bed fifteen years ago. They are the thoughts between dozing and waking that rouse me like a soldier hearing gunshots, so I can't retreat back to sleep. Decisions about moths in the closet, what is in the freezer, and who will sew on buttons demand two a.m. resolution. So do the echoes at three a.m. of family stories I grew up on. How to survive, how to be true to myself, what is beautiful, what is love, all seem imbedded in memory and collective expectations that shaped who I was supposed to become. And whether I embrace or resist these legacies, they leave their mark, forcing me to find my niche between parents who valued sacrifice and obligation and children who pursue freedom and self-realization. |
