L'Hitraot, Hobbit Bed

When I moved into my camp house, my other two housemates were already living there. Their beds were made and their cubbies were organized, while mine both stood empty and waiting for me.

As I unpacked and began to put my things away, I noticed that they had done something to me that I absolutely would have done to them: of the three beds, two were twin-sized and one was not. Both short and narrow, the empty bed waiting for me was suited less for a person (short and narrow that I am) and more for a hobbit.

In the six weeks that have passed since then, I have been sleeping in the hobbit bed every night. Unlike my other housemates, both of whom sleep other places at times for various reasons both personal and professional, I always sleep in our house and I always sleep in the hobbit bed.

When I left at session break last weekend and went back to what for my own mental health, and because I think it is accurate, I have started to call "my house" in Berkeley I stayed in my full-sized bed for five whole nights and when I stripped the sheets off it Sunday morning before leaving I was so sad at the thought of returning that night to my hobbit bed at camp. Returning via bus duty meant I only got here just before the campers which felt rushed so I hurried to get my stuff out of the luggage van, then run down the hill behind the office to our house. Throwing the door open and piling my stuff inside, what did I see?

Over session break one of my housemates, Jessica the social worker, had moved out and so her regular-sized bed was empty. Unmade and forlorn in the corner, it was practically begging for someone to adopt it. YES!

I stripped the sheets from my mattress and for the next ten minutes I sweated, grunted, shoved and pushed my own bed out of its corner and into the middle of the room, hoping the new social worker wouldn't arrive and walk in on me stealing her regular bed. I lifted Jessica's old bed into the place in the corner between the two windows where the hobbit bed had been, ripping the map of the world hung above my un-headboard (no such structural feature on hobbit beds) and knocking down two of the cards Kelli has sent me, all of which I hang up there so I can see them when I am sitting and writing letters during rest hour or lying and waiting to fall asleep at night. Propping my new bed against the wall, I climbed underneath to retrieve everything that fell down and also moved my cubby over to make more room, then shoved the twin-sized bed into my spot and slid the hobbit bed where Jessica's had been.

Did I feel kind of badly putting my sheets onto my new mattress and then lying down, all sixty-four inches of me fitting comfortably as I stretched out completely unlike before when I had to sleep on my side with my knees bent? Kind of. A little. Maybe not so much. In Hebrew there is an expression you use when you are leaving someone: l'hitraot, which means "see you later." L'hitraot, hobbit bed—my back feels better already.