I Will Build You A Bed ...

 … literally, if you’re my friend Julie. Here's her bed. We built it together last week because it’s easier to wrestle larger self-assembly things into being with company.

Helping build Julie’s bed put me in mind of something Ted told me that his grandson Freddy said a while ago. I thought his words, as I walked home: I Will Build You A Bed … and then later ... this can be the promise I make to myself as I enter my 7th decade.

I’ve spent too much of my first six decades weary - some of the tiredness inevitable. Much of it the result of trying too hard to avoid something. Myself, mainly. Myself as reflected to me by the habits I formed to survive the harsh aspects of my childhood (serve, please, rescue) which are no longer needed. It’s time to rest up from all the reverberations of that childhood stuff, and the pains they cause.

So, here I am, or there I was, thinking about, and now quoting, what young Freddy exclaimed so lovingly to his beloved grandpa, whom he calls CC, in the context of Ted explaining why he couldn’t stay at Freddy’s home (because there was no bed). “But I Will Build You A Bed, CC!”

***

But I Will Build You A Bed, Liz. A place to sleep, a place to grow strawberries and over-winter your geraniums, a place to read and write, to stare at the sky, a place to run, and a place to camp. I will build a place to lounge around, to daydream, to sing and dance, to sleep on-and-off till noon sometimes. A place which takes proper heed of those wearisome wearinesses, carried since childhood, lays them to rest.