My wife and I ordered a new state-of-the-art bed, you know, the kind that vibrates and sits you up so you can read your self-help books before your restless sleep. Last night, we sat in it with our kids and vibrated. Then we laughed. We may be unhoused in a month, but at least we have a comfy bed.
Last month, my wife, the breadwinner in our family, learned that she was part of a company-wide layoff thirty days before we planned to close on a new home. Despite numerous efforts to find work, the job search has yet to bear fruit. We sold our house, so we must be out by January first. We are still determining where we will land.
That last paragraph makes me want to vomit. I have been making many lists, contingency lists, daily to-do lists, and lists of affirmations, with bullshitty bullet points like “crisis is danger and opportunity” (ok, it’s not bullshit). But none of my lists comfort me much nor dissuade me from a simple fact: things are falling apart, and we may be living with my in-laws soon until we can untangle this Gordian knot.
I feel frightened, angry at myself and my wife, compassionate for us as well, terrified of what to tell my kids, and alone. I busted out in tears as I folded my girl’s socks this morning: more piles, more order, little sense. I want to jump out a window. But I won’t, mostly because I must make the bed tomorrow morning.
I have made my bed nearly daily, starting with a small childhood bed replete with Superman sheets. I am not a good bedmaker; I’m average at best; my wife makes a bed like a seasoned hotelier, with neat corners, crisp, sharply drawn bed sheets, and symmetrical pillow placement. When I look at our neatly made bed, I swear to God, it sets something in motion in me, a sense that the little things might add up to something bigger. That I may make my bed on a day when I am not in crisis.
More importantly, I have made my bed on days of infinite crisis and survived them. When I was in drama school, and a quarter of my class had been put on probation or kicked out, and my standing depended on my scene work every day, I made my bed. It was a futon, to be precise, with a flat, lumpy mattress and a threadbare, bright red comforter that shredded into tiny strands like a shedding cat. After making my bed and picking up the pieces of my blanket, I made coffee in our dark kitchen with a cold linoleum floor. Who has linoleum floors? I did — it doesn’t matter. I got up and made my goddamn bed.
I completed my MFA.
I made my bed when I was drunk, and I had binged the night before. I made my bed before putting on a cheap Menswear suit with trousers too big to meet my lawyer before bankruptcy court; I made my bed on days of victory as well, when I held my daughters for the first time and marveled at their tiny, snail antennae like fingers, cockled and soft or when I fought through depression to give a triumphant performance at the Secret Theater in New York City.
I made the bed after making love to my future wife for the first time; her hair splayed on my chest. We were both looking out of the large palladium window of her bedroom at the hurricane of songbirds in the massive tree out her window, silently bemused at the mystery unfolding in the branches and the one unfurling in our hearts.
Admiral William H McRaven, ninth commander of US Special Operations Command, at a commencement address at the University of Texas at Austin, said this:
“If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the day's first task. It will give you a small sense of pride and encourage you to do another task. And another. And another. So if you want to change the world, start by making your bed.”
I couldn’t agree more. In the 1970s, my father was a director of logistics in a paper company. He was a somewhat stern, disciplined man, and every Sunday morning, at 5 a.m., he woke my brother and me up so we could deliver the Boston Sunday Globe to our neighbors. He was a man of habit and taught us the power of little habits.
The Sunday Boston Globe was about as large as the Guttenburg Bible, so it came to us in sections. We laid each section on the kitchen table and folded one section into the other. Then, my father would get the “bank” out and give us change so we could make change for the neighbors if needed. The bank was a Folger’s Jar. I remember him counting and rolling pennies backdropped by bruised cobalt winter clouds outside our kitchen window.
As far as I can remember, we delivered every paper.
We’ve all heard that small moments, small things, matter and that they can keep us grounded in moments of great crisis or compel us toward more significant goals. What the small stuff does beyond creating momentum is create lived, burned-in sensory memories that evoke a particular moment. When we say “remember when,” the minutia triggers our story: the sound of songbirds, the Folger jar of pocket change, or how your wife makes the bed.
Right now, in this groundless phase of my life, I may be making some of the most vivid memories of my life, one slight sensation at a time, which is a blessing.
