My bed, when it is freshly made looks like a newly opened carton of French vanilla ice cream and I want to scoop out a bite. I am hesitant to sit on such a smooth creamy surface, but I do, even though it hurts a little, that tiny intake of breath like touching hot water. I don’t want to disturb its surface and yet I must.
When I was a girl, I had a friend, Marybeth, who panicked when I sat on her bed. It was my first time in her room. She screamed at me, “What are you doing?” I looked at her as if she were mad. I wasn’t doing anything. What was she talking about? “Get up! Get up! Get up!” she shrieked. Not until she pulled on my arm could I tell from the look on her face she was dead serious.
“What is wrong with you?” I laughed unnerved and wanting to tease my friend.
“I’ll get in trouble,” she insisted. “My mom doesn’t let me sit on the bed.”
“What? That doesn’t make sense,” I said, bouncing back onto her bed.
Marybeth shoved me. “Get off!”
Not two seconds later the bedroom door opens and in walks her mother wearing a dress and apron as if she were auditioning for the part of Mrs. Cleaver in Leave it to Beaver. She may have barged in to see what the commotion was all about, but what she said was, “Marybeth Bianco, how many times have I told you not to sit on your bed?” Mrs. Bianco lifted a corner of the bedspread, vigorously tugged the sheets tight and tucked them under the mattress as if she were in a wrestling match with it. She smoothed the bedspread and folded the edges just so, then stood, hands on hips, victorious but aggrieved.
“I warned you, Marybeth. Never again.”
When she left, Marybeth fumed. “I told you. Now I’m in trouble. My mom’s going to kill me.”
I stared at my friend. “No, she’s not. You didn’t do anything wrong.” But I worried. I had just seen evidence of how crazy Marybeth’s mother was, not knowing back then that her mother wasn’t crazy but probably had severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Which is why I make myself sit on my unblemished bed. And when I stand, impressions of my rump lay in folds. Sometimes I whack them out of place. And sometimes I leave them to make sure I still can.
May all sentient beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness. May we be free from suffering and the root of suffering. May we not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering. May we dwell in the great equanimity free from passion, aggression, and prejudice. -- The Four Immeasurables