tranquility
there are , sadly, few places in life where we can hope to have complete environmental control. Someone at the desk next to you is bound to be proudly displaying their precious moments figurines or listening to soft rock on a dismal little clock radio, the guy in line behind you at the super market is standing so close you can feel gusts of fowl breath on the back of your neck, or the person next to you at the red light hasn’t had their fuel system serviced since reagan’s first term. but for many of us our bedroom provides something of a sanctuary - a place to escape from all the unpleasant and unpredictable elements elsewhere.
i myself have a humble but lovely little bedroom - yes it would be grand if the entire contents weren’t sporting a layer of cat hair but that just goes with the territory. i have dozens of pillows, candles, lotions and oils, throws and serapes i’ve collected from some of my travels, loads of books, sketch pads and journals filled with sheets of lovely high-rag-content paper. my adjoining bathroom is equipped with thick, soft towels and numerous oils, salts and soaps just ready to be dumped into piping hot bath water.
a co-worker of mine harbors similar sentiment when it comes to her bedroom; she has gone so far as to name her place of rest ‘tranquility.’ now i think that is just gorgeous . she chooses to not have a clock or television present and music only when it matches her mood. a couple of days ago she appeared slightly haggard and drawn looking - nothing too shocking, she travels a great deal and is likely to have the occasional late night. mid-morning she stops by my desk with a little gift - it just happened to be my birthday and for reasons unknown to me people are grandly sweet - she mentions that she has not had any sleep from the night before. okay , i’ll bite. why? because a naked man tried to break in my bedroom window about midnight she tells me.
hold my calls. i take her by the elbow and haul all eighty six pounds of her around the corner and tell her to spill. she describes turning off her bedside lamp and hearing some muffled noises; at first she thought it was some much needed rain pattering onto her balcony but realized it was happening to the side of her. she glances at the window and sees a silhouette of someone peering in. racing down the stairs she looks up through a picture window and sees legs, bare ones, dangling from her second story. dialing 911 she rushes out the front door and around the corner to await atlanta’s finest. why did she run outside when that freak was out there? because her own home no longer felt like a sanctuary to her - it was the place that the freak was trying to get into, possibly trapping her inside.
now i’m fairly generous by nature, i’ve been known to hand a fiver to the guy begging on the corner simply because i felt grateful that i had not been reduced to that custom…not yet anyway. but if someone fucks with one i care about they will be dealt with. so that night i offered to come to her place and stay so that she might get some rest. oh yeah, i'd be bringing my two roommates - mr. smith and mr. wesson - with me and that surely i possessed the ovaries to drop her troubles should he make another appearance. she thanked me profusely but assured me that she would be fine; she had secured each entry with heavy-duty locks purchased that very afternoon. i got the feeling that i may have frightened her just a little …got her mind off the fear she felt for the freaks she does not know. aren’t i clever?
prevention is kinder than destruction. each year over six million healthy dogs, cats, puppies and kittens are killed as surplus. remember: neuter, spay and don't let them stray!