Repose? Are you kidding?*

There comes a time in every woman's life when she realizes that she will--or should be--sleeping alone for the remainder of her days.

Both my grandmothers were solo sleepers, with their own, full-sized beds squeezed into the room right along with their husbands' smaller, twin-sized models. I assumed that this arrangement was just an old-fashioned form of birth control that had outlived its usefulness. And it probably was.

But I can see now that it was so much more.

Lately, I've been enjoying the company of Muffin Uptown while she determines plan B with regard to her on-campus housing, which turned out to be less hospitable than we had hoped. She was put off by the chihuahua-sized cockroaches and freshmen roommates; I was worried about possible cholera outbreaks.

And although I'm not really set up for house guests (since I don't really like other people that much), I do have a nice, big, California King-sized bed. In theory, she should be able to sleep on the other side without either one of us being the wiser.

And so she did--for the first couple of nights. But lately, each of us is beginning to fear for her safety, and I'm fairly certain that she's not getting the quality of sleep necessary to maintain her 4.0 gpa.

This is where I would like to state for the record that I was a gracious, loving mother to my child when she was small and helpless and dependent upon me for her every need. When she whimpered in the middle of the night, I graciously arose from my slumber and thumped my way into her room to do what I could to make her happy. But once that small, defenseless child becomes a fully-grown woman, at least in the land of nod, it's every woman for herself. And that young woman is all over my part of the bed.

Which is bad enough, but she also has apparently inherited her father's propensity for snapping and popping in her sleep. Their philosophy? Why roll over smoothly, when a jerky, sudden movement will get the same job done in half the time. (I might still be married to him, had he agreed to let me have the twin beds I begged him for.)

And it all reminds me way too much of having to sleep with my paternal grandmother. I would have been so much happier camping on the couch or even on a pallet on the floor. By midnight, even the dog bed was starting to look good.

My grandmother suffered from bad nerves. I'm not entirely sure what this means, but I do know that both my brother and I irritated the condition. "You kids are on my nerves. Go outside."

Her nerves were so sensitive that even my blinking while sharing her bed was enough to cause her pain. Sleeping with her became an exercise in pretending to be dead. Any movement, no matter how small, resulted in my grandmother snapping, "Sister, BE STILL." (Although I am not a lesbian, my grandmother called me Sister right up until the day she died. I think this was designed to constantly remind my brother that we were, in fact, blood kin, and not to kill me in a fit of pique over the last Vienna sausage in the can.)

And so (troubling as it is) I am now cast in the role of my grandmother--futilely urging MU to BE STILL. And like my grandmother, I can feel her every movement, no matter how tiny--every eye-roll, every deep and burdened sigh that my request compels her to make.

Which is my only justification for my less-than-maternal response to the numerous incidents of elbows to foreheads, foot drifting, and butt encroaching. Last night, I raised up to see the time and realized that my elbow was squarely on top of MU.

"Umph," she said.

"Stay on your own side," I said. "And be still."

photo, so le

*Written, not surprisingly, during the threes.