under_the_bed jane they started out as bunk beds for my brother and i, when we shared a room for a short period of time. when we moved to the harrier house, my brother and i got our own rooms but instead of getting new beds, they just separated the ones we had. + + + it's not easy to be a little girl who goes toe-to-toe with your father. fathers are often times the authoritative, intimidating force in a child's life. i remember one of the first times i saw the phrase "daddy's girl." it didn't make any sense to me. i had always been closer with my mother, who parented me creatively and treated me respectfully. i realize a child is a child, and it may sound pompous to state that i was a special child, but at the very least i can humbly state that i was special somehow, and odd, and required a certain amount of creativity and respect. i never took the word "because" on its own as an answer. my mother also understood that i needed space - on all different levels. theoretically, a person's physical space should be the manifestation of their mental and emotional space. and for many, that is their bedroom. for me - my bedroom was decorated pink against my will; i never liked the color pink; i liked strong, vibrant reds and blues and yellows. most of all, i strongly desired a lock on my door. your bedroom should be sanctuary. i wanted a lock to show my father how much i needed that space to be mine, only mine. i tried to invent locks, even. one circumstance comes directly to mind, when i wound a belt around the doorknob and frame (i suppose - the engineering eludes me at the moment). my father either cut through or busted through every time. talk about broken barriers. he hated closed doors. it's evident now, in his relationships. it's his narcissism, his control issues. he thinks what he can't see, he can't control. interestingly enough, his vision misses quite a bit. (a karmic joke from the other side? to make him an eye surgeon?) because of the lack of security and privacy of my room, i retreated under the bed. i performed an experiment one time where i went under the bed and waited as i heard my parents calling my name around the house, even coming into my room, but not knowing i was under the bed. this was to be my place of solitude. + + + (bonnie said later, "how sad. that's what dogs and cats do to get away from people - they go under the bed." how sad, indeed. how pathetic.) + + + under the bed: i tore away at the fabric and drew on the beams. i stuck magazine pictures into the nooks and crannies. i wrote poems and quotes that i found. i created art. real art, things that came from my soul and the imperative notion to create something from nothing, and expel my emotions. catharsis. + + + after the divorce, the beds went to dad's new house and we got new waterbeds at mom's new house. there were custody issues and i refused to go back and forth. the conflicts between my father and i increased in intensity and i refused to go back and forth between houses every 2 weeks. my brother would abide with no complaints - or if he had them, i never heard. the compromise was that i would stay at dad's only the weekends my brother was there. 2 weekends a month. it was still too much for me and often times i would sneak out and meet sean and drink and mess around in his car. + + + fast forward - i'm in college and dad is turning adam's room into the office and my room into the guest room. tense change even. he tells me he gave the beds to his maid (another subordinate in his life that he has chosen to be female, following the pattern of girlfriends and co-workers). i ask him if he saw all the stuff under it. he says no. how could he miss all that? years of drawing and writing and cutouts? can it really be that karmic joke of him being an eye surgeon who misses everything? they are laughing on the other side.. 100609 ... cr0wl loved this...i cut out pictures and glued them inside my bedroom closet. 100609 ... unhinged when my dad told me to clean my room as a child, i stuffed everything under the bed. the bed skirt hid most of it until it was so stuffed nothing else could fit. when my parents moved recently my dad bitched about having to clean everything out from under the bed. 100609 ... lostgirl when i was a child, underneath my bed was filled with with whatever needed hidden from view to make my room appear clean...but funny enough, recently when we got my dad's old antique pool table out of storage, the slate underneath was completely covered in chalk drawings from when i was in grade school. 100609 ... jane anecdotal - i refuse to have an under_the_bed anymore. i prefer my boxspring to be on the floor. the only type of frame i've ever wanted (but have never been able to afford) is a captain's bed. 100611 what's it to you? who go blather from