Up Against the Wall

Our beds were always pushed against the wall, tucked into opposite corners of the room I shared with my older sister.

Even when she moved to her own room, my bed remained snugged into the corner. I remember slipping my foot between the mattress and the wall, comforted and cradled by tight envelop of sheet and wall.

And later, away at college, beds always clung to the wall. In dorms we had no choice, no room to re-arrange. My bunk on the sorority sleeping porch – a lower one – huddled into the northeast corner. Had I chosen that one instead of an open bunk in in the middle of the room?

My first apartments were no different. Shared bedroom with twin beds in the familiar formation.

And then. My own apartment, a single bed, centered on the wall. I could rise from either side. The openness new, exciting, disorienting.

And then. Big beds, shared. How did we choose sides? Did we choose?

And now. A decade of sleeping in a bed centered on the wall. Nights alone, sometimes sleepless, adrift, vulnerable.

But in my guest room a single bed snuggles tight up against the wall. Just the look of it brings comfort.