Just another plastic mattress
by Bob on July 30, 2007
A good friend of mine said to me recently that the place she was staying at temporarily was, after all, just another "plastic mattress".
This is a very subtle and yet extraordinary statement.
When someone is struggling with life, in its most indelicate form or contemptuous ways, every place we bounce into and out of, especially temporary places, all seem to have a metaphorical as well as very real plastic mattress to sleep on.
Therein lies the rub. It's not our own mattress. It's not our place. It's not even a cloth mattress. It's a plastic mattress which is metaphysically very inconsiderate of us as sensitive human beings. After all, a mattress is something we sleep on and hearken our best dreams and starry night images which might portend better for our future and lives. Sleeping on a plastic mattress is a drag. Like in the movie, "The Graduate", the future is all about plastic.
But plastic and temporary situations have their moments.
It's a bridge. It's a seque. It's hope, after all, to a better place where we can hang our heart.
We all keep bouncing around in the nuclear reactor of life, like ping-pong balls in a fish tank with springing mousetraps. But we're still alive and kicking.
So, we should cope with yet another plastic mattress, knowing that we will most happily receive a comfortable cloth mattress someday again. For what has been lost will be re-gained again. Over and over. That is the human condition: loss and gain. Like a human Stock Market. The Dow Jones Index of Life itself.
Hang on to the plastic mattress. It's although crackly, still a level of comfort.
And I was once told that we are all wanderers until we reach heaven, which is our final resting place. Hopefully, if we can follow Dante.
Hope is the most critical attribute we can possess. It was the only thing left in Pandora's jar in ancient Greek mythology.
Let's hang on to what we've got and be pleased with it, no matter how little it is. Otherwise, we're in trouble with life itself.
So my dear friend is very much of a survivalist now and quite brave.
We should all be so lucky.