Featherticks and Air Mattresses

I love air mattresses. I always have. When I spend the night at a friend's house or somewhere, and they're like, oh, sorry, all I have is an air matress, I'm like, it's ok!! I like air mattresses!!

My parents, if you didn't know, are typical Seattle people. Both raised in the crazy hippie downtown Seattle 1960s, my dad was raised whitebread Boeing innercity, my mom raised uhm, how do I say without using the typical offensive slang we used at home, ethnic? innercity. Either way, it's about the same. Same economic status, same immigrant types yelling at you from the doorways, well - ok, different druggie preferences, but still most of your neighbors on drugs.

Anyway, when we lived in Seattle we were surrounded by family, even though they were still in different neighborhoods. These neighborhoods were much the same since my parents grew up in them, and probably are still the same now even though I'm grown up from them. I would get to stay at different houses of relatives since I was a good house guest, but annoying to live with 24/7 (homeschooled!!), apparently. Mostly it was my cousin's house or they were at mine since we were all homeschooled, us three girls crammed into a tiny room wherever we were sent. I remember fighting over who got a certain mattress for the floor - if an air mattress could survive long enough without getting a hole so that we could each have a turn - that was rare.

For the summer we were always sent to the Farm (what we considered Kid Paradise HQ) where Grandma was much more practical. She had WWII cots with squeaky rusting springs and very very thin mattresses on top, and "Feather Ticks", which I'm sure came over from Eastern Europe on the boat with my Grandma Martha. Oh, Feather Ticks, nothing at all like the sleek, modern air mattress. I would lay one feather-stuffed cotton sack on top of another, but it always felt like I was sleeping on the floor. Additionally, 70 years of goose feathers, dust and mold made my small lungs very ill, although no one made the connection at the time. For goodness sake, my dad had slept on them, maybe even my grandma, as a child. My younger cousins must've thought I was generous in later summers, letting them have three feather ticks while I slept on one or none - but it was just that I knew there was no point, no matter what, I was still really sleeping on the bare floor. I have never had a cushion of chubbiness, so these bony prominences need to stay away from the floor.

But there was always hope of an air mattress at the end of the summer. My mom would cook for the youth retreats for our church in Seattle, and would take me for a week or two to the ocean, or one of the lakes in hot, sunny eastern Washington or Oregon. Not only did I get to see most of gorgeous spots and sights of the Northwest during those summers, but all from the comfort of my air mattress. If only I would've known sooner that my mom bought those at the dollar store (for only a dollar!) in the pool toys section, I would've saved my own money and bought 12. I could lay my sleeping bag on top of that air mattress and drift comfortably into dreamland wherever our tent was laid, even if it was on top of pointy rocks.

The past few weekends, actually every weekend since Christmas, we've had houseguests. Last week we blew up the air mattress for extra sleeping space. After the guests had left I was starting to deflate it. I suddenly felt sad. All that air, comfy, cozy air, only slept on one time, what a waste. I pushed my hand down on it - it was still a tensile structure. As it started to deflate it wheezed nooooo. I stopped deflating, stood up, turned around and just fell back into it with complete trust the air mattress would cushion my fall. All those happy summer memories flooded back to me in an instant. The bright stars above Moses Lake, the warm air at the Crossing at Keller's Ferry, three girls giggling about pancakes late at night in a stuffy room, and the small space in between the 2nd floor stairs and the wall at the Farm that is just room enough to sleep in.

I declared to Josh later in the evening that the air mattress was staying in the living room fully inflated and that even though it was a Thursday night and I have to get up early to work the next day, I was going camping, and he is welcome to join me (it is a queen size air mattress anyway). We stayed up late sitting on the air mattress, eating snacks, watching funny TV shows (The Office AND camping?! Yes please!), and I felt the general giddiness of sleeping out in a different space, with different blankets and different surroundings, and the naughtiness of being up past bedtime on a worknight for the sole purpose of having Summertime-like fun.

I woke up in the morning refreshed, and half-expecting the smell of evergreen trees and the sound of a propane stove heating water for coffee in a tin can. I bounced around the kitchen getting ready for work, and Josh must have noticed the huge grin on my face. He asked, "You had fun camping, didn't you?" Yes I did.

"You want to go camping again tonight?". I felt a smile run across my face. I wrapped my arms around his neck as my way of a thank you for him sharing silly things like air mattresses with me (which I'm sure hold little to no interest or sentiment for him). I whispered to a response to him, YES, Yes I do want to go camping again tonight.