Thursday, June 11, 2009

Somebody to fart on

A friend of mine says that's why you need a husband, to have somebody to fart on in the night. When somebody pointed out to her that you could have a dog for that, she said, oh, sorry, I forgot the dog. You need somebody to fart on AND let the dog out at night. I think she has a point.

For a while, I worked the very late third shift, and as a result of that, very rarely shared a bed with my husband. At first it didn't matter much, we were pretty much at odds anyway, me having recently left him for a while and all. While I got more uninterrupted sleep sleeping alone, there was a funny, hollow feeling just the same.

In the early days of our relationship, one of my kids commented that it was funny that he clung to my back in sleep, something like a furry armed limpet. My son said "stuck" to your back, Mom. I had never liked that. I had always believed that I couldn't sleep with somebody touching me, side by side was okay, but from the first night we spent together, we have been like that. Stuck, grafted, clinging to each other in the night. Going to bed mad is pointless when you know that the minute you are unconscious, your body is going to stick to the other person's and you will wake up melded together just like always. He also pets me in his sleep, kissing the top of my head and stroking my hair. How do you tell somebody to quit that? Gestures of love and tenderness ungoverned by a conscious mind. How can you doubt that somebody who does that loves you? He's more than a person to fart on in the night, but that is totally descriptive of a loving, trusting, open relationship, when you can repeatedly do something basically disgusting to another human being and they don't mind. I think Ivy had it right after all.