Witness the Small Life – Bedtime Story

‘Tis the season for illness and sickness rampant throughout all of campus, and I unfortunately have fallen victim to it yet again. Although being sick has stopped me in my tracks, it’s allowed myself to catch up on the TV and chores I’ve been meaning to do.

In my time bedridden and sniffling, I wanted to return to a sort of form for myself and focus on drawing from observation. In all of my whirlwind of projects and material explorations for my studio classes, I often forget the joy I feel when I get the chance to just draw. Although this isn’t the typical style for this blog, I wanted to spend time doing something I find to be healing. There’s something very special to me in trying to find the most captivating and exciting ways to capture what I can see onto a flat piece of paper, whether that being what’s right in front of me or a scene conjured in my head. In this sketch, I wanted to focus on the place I’ve been spending the most time recently and also a place I find to be just as healing as drawing: my bed. Throughout all of my life, my bed has been my own sovereign island of tranquility away from the craziness of my sisters (whom I shared a room with growing up). It was my rock and my safe place after exhausting days at school. Its where I dreamed, created my art, wrote stories, immersed myself in my favorite movies and books. My bed has always been my haven and this became especially apparent to me when I moved for college last year. This was the first time my bed had become a new place outside of my childhood bed I’ve known my whole life. My bed still remained my sanctuary in my shared dorm room and cradled most of my belongings both on top and below it. It held my body when I felt sick from missing home and when I quite literally was sick during outbreaks of frat flus and mystery colds throughout my first semester. Although this bed was not the same as the bed I knew before, it existed as the same safe place it always had been. The idea of constantly moving has always been a pit in my stomach since starting college, and it continues to be in some ways, but I began to grapple with this fear through the changing existence of what my bed was when I worked my first year as a camp counselor this past summer. Every session us counselors would pack up and move cabins according to the groups we would be working with every few weeks. Nothing was exactly permanent as we constantly moved around but because of this all of camp grew to be my home. The insecure feeling I felt from temporary living started to fade as I began to embrace being in a new place with new people and new stories to create. My bed was a new space almost every week, and sometimes it was a hammock or a tent or wherever I could take a break to rest, but nevertheless it was my bed. I started to disconnect my love for my bed from the actual physicality of what the bed is and more of the mental space I existed in while being in it. I focused less on where it is and what it had and more of what it could offer me which was rest and comfort and the ability to become my best self to support my campers throughout their days. This new concept of what my bed is has carried through to my move to this new apartment, first apartment to boot, and has given me much more security in living in this transient time of my life. No matter where I am, who I’ll become, or what situation I’ll be in I will always be able to have a space I can feel comfortable in because it is a space that only I can create. Whether it’s my bed, or my room, or a mental escape for my ravaging emotions, I can put trust in myself to create the place I need to be to rest and heal myself.

To take into our next week:

Ins: Pedialyte and other electrolyte drinks, heating blankets, fuzzy socks, my leather jacket that still faintly smells like campfire, cucumbers, 2B pencils.

Outs: Forgetting to take your nightly cold medicine, the smell of the new Dawn dish soap, forgetting to label my leftovers, damp towels, too tight hats, dirty glasses.

I hope to everyone else feeling congested, wheezy, and down-right bad that you heal swiftly! To everyone else, appreciate being able to breathe out of both nostrils when you can.