the secret power of bed making

One of our kitties, Kismet, enjoying a freshly made bed this morning.

Ok, so those of you who know me, or at least read my blog and look at the photos, know that I'm not the world's tidiest housekeeper. I try to keep the level of sanitation to a reasonably healthy status, but Marth Stewart I ain't. So it may come as a surprise to many of you (much as it did to myself) that I'm a big proponent of making beds.

For years, I resisted making my bed in the morning. Or any other time of day. My mother can attest to this fact, as I fought tooth and nail against it my entire childhood. In the sanctity of my own dorm room at college, I rejoiced in my failure to straighten sheets or tuck corners. As a newly married woman, I decided to incorporate anti-bed-making as a morning ritual -- I'd pull all the covers down and let them drape over the floor each morning, using the excuse that I was "airing out" the bed, when really I was just revolting against the image of a classic housewife. For that past two decades, unless there was company expected, the bed cloths remained in disorganized, careless heaps.

But over the course of the past year, I've discovered that there is magic in the ritual of bed making. It all began when I first started reading about daily rhythms in my newly aquired Enki Kindergarten Curriculum materials. Actually, more acurately, it began when I started trying to IMPLEMENT some of their ideas. Mind you, nowhere in their materials do they suggest making a bed (one of the things that instantly endeared them to me). But I tried to come up with some sort of morning ritual that would get our day off on the right foot. And in the process of fiddling around with various ideas, at some point I made a bed.

It was a revolutionary moment for me. I made a bed. And I liked how it made me feel to do it. Accomplished. Look at that, it's only 8:05 AM , and I've already DONE something, something I can point at as proof of having gotten my butt in gear. In fact, I liked it so much, I went and made another bed. And then another. Then I turned to admire my work -- all the beds were made. And it was only 8:09. I turned to the kitchen and started cleaning up in there too.

I repeated the experiment the next day. And the following. And each day I felt envigorated and ready to take on the world -- or at least the mundane household tasks that I usually procrastinated long enough on that eventually the end of the day would come and I'd run up my white flag, admit defeat, and promise to get to it tomorrow. I did loads of laundry. I did the dishes. I paid the bills. I vaccumed the carpet.

And then, coming out of my housecleaing high after a week of organization, I awoke with a start one morning. WHAT was I doing? What was I becoming? A HOUSEWIFE (egads, gasp!) MY MOTHER?? (Eeeeeeeeeeeek!) The supressed rebel in me surged to the surface and I flung the sheets and blankets aside, and left them lying there. I didn't need no stinkin' bed making to get me going in the morning. Defiantly I strode to the kitchen and made some breakfast and sat down to eat with the kids.

After breakfast, we took the dishes to the sink. I looked at the mess before me, promised I'd get to it later, and went to look at the laundry situation instead. The computer was singing out to me, so I sat down for a quick check of emails. Zoo Boy tugged on my sleeve at some point in the following hour or two, begging for a diaper change. I finally got the kids dressed. I looked at the clock. 11:00. I looked around at the mess -- piles of laundry, piles of dishes, and that darned unmade bed, all taunting me. Hahahahaha, they laughed, look at you, you sloth.

I made the beds the next morning. And most mornings since. The days I don't, I don't get much else done either. The days I do, I sing my way through it, and even though it only takes about 4 minutes to make all 3 beds, it does something to my brain. It organizes it. It energizes it. It puts it in a place of rhythm that the rest of my morning -- the rest of my day -- flows from. Once I'm moving, I keep moving. Things get done. And I'm left with time -- SPACE -- for the more important things.

The beds don't stay made long, by the way. The kids mess them up pretty quickly. The dogs and cats roll around on them. And eventually Rest Time lands us all in a bed to rumple things up again, and nobody bothers to fix it, me included. But it's not about the appearance of a made bed. It's the process of doing it, first thing, as soon as we get up, that starts me down the right path.

Hm, what do you know. Maybe my mother was right....