Watching people sleep

Your own blankets become foreign, wrapped and tangled around someone else. It doesn't even look like your living room anymore, because there's a body in it, throwing all your lines and angles askew.

I've peeked around corners to see if they've shifted, if the turn to their side reveals an uncovered brow. To see someone's closed eyes is to see the most peaceful someone can be, how calm and quiet. The stillness below the chest makes me stare until I see the sheet rising again; I hold my breath until I can hear theirs.

Someone once told me I am beautiful when I am sleeping, that even I can know calm in sleep. Watching people sleep is calm too, because someone in the world is knowing a calm, even if it's not me.

An art gallery in London recently exhibited the actress Tilda Swinton sleeping in a large glass box in the centre of the room.

A similar exhibition also occurred in Germany - rather than being restricted to a single sleeping art form, it involved a number of beds being available within the gallery for office workers, or anyone else for that matter to use at any time during the day - provided they didn't mind being used as an art exhibit.

Tired souls bedded down at their own leisure and were watched by fascinated and bemused art lovers as they slumbered.

What a lovely idea.

ne narande ko cho^ to neko to osho^ kana

sleeping in a row--
a little butterfly, a cat
and a head priest

--Issa, 1821.