The Archaeology of my Life in Bed

Some one who was obsessed with me once declared rather disapprovingly that I had 'an alternative lifestyle'.  He was a transplanted Brit who was living in the States but working for an enormous German firm at the time.  He was soon to be 'laid off' by the same firm...  At this point, he began to lead a very peculiar lifestyle himself and one that intersected with mine only at certain well-defined points.  I am sorry to say, however, that I allowed his opinion to colour mine to the extent that I moved from the Lower East Side in New York to the Upper East Side.

Much water has flowed beneath that bridge.  I haven't lived in Manhattan for a long time, but I have to admit that I never enjoyed the Upper East Side half as much as the East Village.  The East Village was a real neighbourhood and a very international one.  I could pop down the road for Tibetan noodles at a restaurant run by anti-communist Tibetan rebals or enjoy a marvelous Italian pastry at a rather well-known bakery on another corner. 

It was not my life in Manhattan that was to be the topic of this post, however, but my more recent life outside New York.   The changing of my bed linen is a HUGE task, as my bed occupies most of my tiny bedroom and is the place where I live for the most part.  As a young girl, I read that Louis XIV during the Fronde was forced to sleep in a bed where the linens never were changed until they literally rotted.  That always fascinated me for some reason, probably because his name is synonymous with sybaritic, excessive luxury.

In the process of moving all of the pillows, featherbeds, mattresses and technological appliances from my bed, a task that incidentally has taken two days, I discovered many lost treasures and rather odd items...

'The Princess and the Pea' is a tale that I loved as a child and recently I found an illustration of it.  The tale is about the extraordinary sensitivity that distinguishes a true 'princess' from an imposer, but in fact, my tale is about a bed with five featherbeds and two mattresses.

As a child, my bed had an old headboard that contained two bookshelves.  I therefore slept with my favourite novels and books of poetry above my head.  I once designed a canopied bed with curtains, bookshelves at the head and shelves beneath the mattress.  I always loved the idea of embracing a variety of experiences in bed but I never expected to be restricted to a life in bed for the most part.  Unfortunately, that is my reality at present.  I suppose it is fortunate that I basically LIKE to read and work in bed, even though many of the activities I love, such as walking, hiking, martial arts training, fencing and dancing are denied to me now.


Inter alia, I found a knife that commemorates the battle of Austerlitz entangled in a duvet along with a small Italian Amaretti di Saronno biscuit tin containing my collection of Lake District jet fossils.   I found my .360 Colt pistol but alas, did NOT find any bullets, nor have I uncovered the magazine.  I did find my jewelery repair tools and my shepherd's cloak from Tunisia.

The Personal Sacrifice in Contemporary Western Culture

When I was a child, piercings and tattoos were taboos in our culture for any child with parents who had either pretensions to gentility or a place in 'Society', whether real or imagined.  My mother forbade me to pierce my ears.  Not surprisingly perhaps, when I went off to University, one of my first Acts of Independence was to have my ears pierced.   Within a decade or so, almost all women had pierced ears and some men had them as well irrespective of social class or status.

As a matter of fact, my mother's attitude about ear piercing never made much sense to me as even as a child I had read descriptions of Charles I's preparations for his death.  His ears were pierced and he went to the headman's block wearing a stunning pearl earring.

This earring, shown above, now resides in a gallery in Nottinghamshire.  If a King annointed by God Himself could pierce his ears, how on earth could it be 'lowborn' to do so?

Tattoos likewise were perceived in Western 'Anglo-Saxon Society' in the 20th Century  as appropriate only for the lowest classes.  The stereotype was that of a drunken sailor who awakened the next morning with tattoos obtained entirely without premeditation or much thought.  That too has changed.

Tattoos, known as 'skin art' or 'Ink' is now common among men and women of all classes in Western culture.  Usually undertaken after much thought and planning, it has become a 'tribal' rite,  a permanent form of art that symbolises something personal to the individual who wears it.

Who am I to recoil in horror from this?   I always was an individualist myself, always some one who felt that no one else should dictate my choices.  When one has a child, the dangers of hypocrisy loom immense on the horizon but how can one deny a child the same freedom of expression one claimed for oneself?  Furthermore, I have marveled at some of the 'skin art' I have seen in the past decade.

In fact, I entered a tattoo parlour some years ago when tattoos were becoming fashionable with a rather vague thought of obtaining a monochromatic necklet in a Celtic style.  As some one who admired the Odhinic tradition of self-Sacrifice in the quest for wisdom, such an ordeal would be apt.   (Less radical than plucking out an eye for a start!)  I was told by the proprietor that a necklet of the type I envisioned would be terribly painful and rather expensive.  At the time, I really could not have afforded it even if I had decided that it represented a necessary rite of passage.  Whether or not I would have had the courage to undergo that particular procedure remains a question unanswered.

I always aspired to be a true 'Warrior Woman' and pursued fencing and martial arts as well as collecting edged weapons.  My daughter followed the same tradition and now is a 2nd Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo at the age of 18.  She asked me to design her first tattoo.  As her name is Freya, the bind-rune I created for her contains all the power inherent in the name of the ancient Northern Goddess.  She was determiined upon a tattoo.  In all honesty, my choices were limited.  I could prohibit the ritual and be ignored or I could participate in it.  I chose to be part of it after repeating all of the old, worn arguments against permanent skin art.

Argument: 'You are only 18.  Your tastes will change.'
Answer: 'I am in my prime now.  I lke the person I have become.  It is truly ME.  Why shouldn't I create a permanent record of this stage in my life?'

For the comparative mythologist, such a response is unanswerable.  It IS a valid rite of passage and one that bears a profound significance.   It is far less radical than some of the rites of passage I once contemplated.  Furthermore, I must recognise that her motivations are solely positive.  There is nothing self-destructive in her desire to create a record of her soul upon her own flesh.  Finally, it is her flesh ultimately and not mine.

More about 'Game of Thrones'

When I was a young girl, admittedly quite arrogant and elitist, the fact that a book, film or series was popular among my contemporaries would have caused me to swear off it completely.  I hope I have learned to be part of the human race now and to judge artists on their own merits rather than their general popularity or lack thereof.

Unfortunately, when George R. R. Martin first was recommended to me by my stepfather shortly after the publication of his first 'Game of Thrones' novel, I eschewed it mainly because I was not in the mood for new fantasy novels.  Furthermore, the fact that he had been compared to Tolkien made me cross.  For me, Tolkien had been the very backbone of my childhood dreams and visions and NO ONE could compare with the Master.

I have come to admire 'Game of Thrones' late and, contrary to my usual way of being introduced to an artist, through the series rather than the novels.  As a voracious reader, I usually have read a book before it ever was translated into any visual medium.  With 'Game of Thrones', however, I was seduced by the HBO series and only then began to read the novels.  As marvelous as the series is, the novels are even better.  Not surprising really...  A writer can be far more detailed in a novel than any film that attempts to capture his/her work.

My daughter Freya unfortunately is almost as elitist as I was at her age and refuses to watch the series or read the books because 'every one at University' talks about them endlessly. Her loss, but I expect she will come to both in the end as they are too wonderful to be ignored forever.

There are so many reasons to love the weaving of the tale, both in cinematic and written form.  For a start, Martin is fully as precise and detailed as Tolkien was in his creation of Middle Earth.  Although everything in 'Game of Thrones' is related to something in our own universe, whether taken from reality, history or myth, he has created something entirely new from the threads.  Flora and fauna, landscapes and history all possess an extraordinary attention to detail.  His characters are profound and each has a distinct personality, character and history.  The kingdoms are various and each has its individual landscape, cuisine, history and culture.

With all of this, there is an aspect to the series that makes it truly great.  The characters include a number of individuals who are unusual, even eccentric and who are ill-equipped either by Nature, their circumstances or their upbringing to fit into conventional society.  And yet they overcome their difficulties or their disabilities to carve a place for themselves in the world.  For me, this is one of the qualities of 'Game of Thrones' that proves it to be a classic in literature. 

Whether it is the dwarf who is born to a noble family and father ashamed to acknowledge him, the young girl who would rather learn to wield a blade than a needle, the Amazonian woman who demands recognition on the battlefield, the self-confessed obese young 'coward' who is forced to serve on the Wall or the young noble bastard who in childhood never had equality with his siblings nor affection from his stepmother, each of these characters somehow becomes an inspiration to any one who has been forced to find his/her unique path in life.

Even the wicked or the characters who generally are unsympathetic have moments of humanity... the Kingslayer and his sister Cersei who are bound by incestuous love are villains for the most part, but his courage and her love for her children must be admired even while the reader may wish defeat upon them both.

I do believe that, like 'Lord of the Rings', these are books and films that I will watch again and again for the pleasure of being immersed in the rich landscapes and tales from the imagination of George R.R. Martin.