I am growing up but not out of my grandmother's bed.  As a small child, I breathe with difficulty and in the middle of the night the utter silence in the room wakens my grandmother.  She is attuned to the absence of my breath.  Has the gentle rhythm of the good nights kept her in wait, in readiness, kept her from sound sleeps as surely as the arrested rhythms, the low singing wheeze, the quick movement of my body turning toward her?

I have my own room. But in the middle of the night each night for years and years I get up without 'wakening and walk the dark hallway to my grandmother's bed and slide in beside her.  In the dark, I see pictures on every wall.  My grandmother and I story-tell.  We are the only two people in this world maybe.  Maybe not, but how could you know for sure in the dark when everyone else has disappeared?  My grandmother and I invented worlds for each other.  A million games and I'll tell you one: 

For over a year when a comet was circling the earth,  my grandmother would become a woman who flew down from the comet to enter her body and answer questions and tell stories.  The character had a secret name. like an imaginary friend. We had signals if I wanted out of the game, and a quick clap would bring my grandmother back into the room.  And when she returned to me I would sit in my grandmother's  lap and tell her all about the visit and what the traveller had said that night. And my grandmother would ask what it was like to, say, fly on the comet and I would answer her. And my stories weren't always the same as the one's I'd been told - which is just as well...

Evenings are intimate, and we sometimes sing in low low voices because we are so close together in this bed… this comet...this ship...this caravan...  My arm stretched across my grandmother's body as we slept/flew/sailed/jostled/soared.  My lips to her ear and I'm whispering a magic spell. Or we're staring at stars and bicycles and I'm holding her hands. 

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