My bedroom.

We call it Maria's room. Not our room. This is mostly because it really is my bedroom but Bing sleeps in there too. Before she was my partner, she was my housemate and the guest room was hers. So, all her stuff is in there.

My room is mine. I love it. It is my sanctuary.

It isn't really done up in any style. I suppose, if pressed, I would say that the colors are cream and brown. My walls are cream colored. My wood floor is ash. (I thought it was maple until some person who knows far more than I do commented on my gorgeous ash floors..) I have two brown scatter rugs down. One is from Tinton's tribe and is a simple brown with tiny cream colors interspersed throughout. The other is a simple rag rug in various shades of brown.

The bed's headboard is against a wall with a small window next to it and another larger one at the foot of the bed, to the left. They don't have curtains, but hurricane shutters in cream. I have two dressers. On one sit my wooden goddesses, Saraswathi and Lakshmi. I use their hands to drape my necklaces, ankle and arm bracelets and rings. I have two small bowls filled with my earrings. I don't have pierced ears but clip ones that Liv likes to try on. I have a picture of Bing with Liv on her back standing in front of our Christmas tree. I also have a picture that I love of Bing standing in a field of flowers. Very mushy.

On the other dresser, the taller one, sit my two wooden boxes, one a music box given to me by one sister and one a plain simple Amish box, given to me by another one. The are stuffed full of my notes from Liv, movie ticket stubs and anything that is of sentimental value to me. I clean them out periodically and then fill them right up again. Also atop this dresser is a norwegian weather buoy given to me by Sven from a vacation spent there long ago. I have a bulletin board on the wall. It holds the words to a Chapin Carpenter song, The Moon and St.Christoper on a large piece of paper, a letter that Liv wrote to Harry Potter asking him to see if Hagrid could help with her softball lessons and various quotes that I like and change on a regular basis. There is also a note from Bing, one of the few mush head ones that she's written to me that pretty much says that she thought about a night of lovemaking all day at work. Neither one of us is big on love notes, so they are worth saving....

I have four washboards that were my Da's. I have no idea why he saved them but they were in his working shed after he died and I have kept them all these years.

Pictures of Liv adorn my walls. One of my favorites is of her in a big fake nose with groucho marx eyebrows and glasses, a moustache. Another one of her as a baby eating a cracker. Still another one that Bing took of Liv and I sitting in her rocker reading Harry Potter.

My bedspread is a cream colored chenille. I have loved chenille for years. I could care less if that is tacky. When Liv was a baby, she loved to take naps with me on that bedspread. I still like to trace the circle weave on it when I lay down. At the end of the bed is a deep ocean blue napping blanket that my sister knitted for me. I sleep best under it. It is perfect for a nap in the middle of the day. Perfect to lie beneath and dream about what I would do if I won the lottery or to day dream about a vacation that I won't ever be able to afford. It is large enough that there is room for Liv, Bing and I together on rainy days.

The bed is a full sized. It gets crowded. That is okay. We don't mind. Well, sometimes we do, but we don't say anything. I like having my space when I sleep; I also like feeling Bing spoon around me and tuck her chin into my shoulder.

My sheets are my biggest indulgence. I insist on at LEAST a 450 count sheet. I have several sets. The ones on the bed now are a black set from Ralph Lauren. My favorites are a flowered blue set, so old that there are a few holes in them, they have been slept on and made love on, held my napping self for over ten years. They are incredibly soft. I love to stretch out my toes in that bed. Love that feeling of softness, of peace and sleep on the way.

I have three bowls of pebbles. I collect them. Some are beautiful, some are plain river rocks. For years, my family and friends have known to bring me back rocks from their vacations instead of gifts. I like to finger these rocks when I have some deep thinking to tackle.

There are plants at the end of the bed next to the wall in front of the window. One plant is a shamrock plant, purchased for me by a man in a grocery store several months ago who saw me mooning over them but not buying. He surprised me in the parking lot by handing it to me. It is thriving. I worried that it would get too much sun, but it seems to love the direct light. I have my violets there too and a large mother in law plant that likes to be ignored and only watered every two weeks.

In all of my windows, I have suncatchers. They send rainbows all over the room around sunset.

I have two candles. Both are scented with sandalwood. Bing and I light them occasionally when we make love or when we just want to talk and a harsh light seems too much. We sometimes fall asleep with them lit, which I know is wrong...but one of us inevitably will awaken an hour or so after our dozing off and blow them out, the wax all warm and soft.

My bedroom is where I do my best reading.

It is probably the one room in the house that holds the best of me, the most of me.

And it is Maria's room.