The flower invites the butterfly with no-mind;
The butterfly visits the flower with no-mind.
The flower opens, the butterfly comes;
The butterfly comes, the flower opens.
I don’t know others,
Others don’t know me.
By not-knowing we follow nature’s course.

-   Ryokan, Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf, 
    Translated by John Stevens

It’s 2 a.m., and I just woke up with a stabbing pain in my neck.  I tried to move, but a bony little pug butt, which belongs to Kojak,  in my back prevented me from rolling over.  I tried sitting up, but my gown, which had twisted into a tourniquet around my body wouldn’t allow it.  My upper torso  was firmly against Jim, who was sleeping blissfully on his back, all stretched out and happy, but my legs were in an unnatural position in relation to the rest of my body.  I tried to move my legs behind me to get myself aligned properly so my neck would stop aching.  The tourniquet gown prevented that, too.  I tried to move my legs further in front of me, so that I could straighten out diagonally across the bed, but I was met with a firm resistance there, too.  I reached down to feel what blocked my legs there, and felt the warm, soft side of Elvis.  With much twisting and heaving, I finally managed to extricate myself from the vise grip of my gown, so I could sit up to survey the situation.  Here’s what I saw in the dim light of the bedroom:  My pillows were in their proper place on my side of the bed.  That’s where my head had been because I could see the indentation.  Kojak was asleep with his small body horizontal to the head of the bed, about 12 inches down from the pillows, exactly where my back should have been.  His bony butt ended smack dab in the center of the space below my pillows.  About another 2 feet further down the bed was Elvis, his body also horizontal and stretching out a good 6 inches further into my sleep space than Kojak did.  As I examined the zig zag of space that my body must have been packed into, I finally understood why my neck was screaming.  I have no idea how I managed to contort myself to fit into that jagged and very small area, but I knew I couldn’t get back into it, nor did I want to.

After I got off the bed, being careful not to disturb Elvis or Kojak, I stood up and stretched my agonized spine, Kojak finally raised his head and looked at me, and I asked him, “Do you see where you are sleeping?  Do you see where Elvis is sleeping?  Do you see why I’m standing up here with no where to sleep?”  Kojak just blinked sleepily at me and crawled down to the foot of the bed, his little lame hind legs half walking, half dragging behind him, and collapsed on his quilt at the foot of the bed.  He smacked his lips a few times in that old man way that he has and went back to sleep.  That was a good answer to my irritated questions.  I will translate for you since I’m very good at Pugese:  “Okay.  I’m going to get up in the middle of the night from my comfortable sleep to accommodate you.  I just hope you appreciate all I have to go through for you.”  And can you believe it?  I felt guilty for having disturbed him!

As I am sitting out here at the computer typing while the pain is somewhat subsiding in my cervical area, I feel a warm, soft body shove past my legs to get under the desk.  I look down between my knees, and there is Elvis looking up at me.  I scoot my rolling desk chair back a few inches to reach down to pet him.  His tail wags happily.  I go back to typing, and Elvis pushes his way out from under the desk and returns to the bed to sleep.  Here’s what Elvis was saying in Pugese:  “Hey there, Mom.  I just got up to see if you were okay.  I’m going back to bed.  See you in the morning.” 

Kojak and Elvis are two of the true loves of my life.  I adore them.  They adore me.  They see no problem with getting comfortable and close up against me in the bed.  It matters not to them that they end up taking over my sleeping space.   After all, next to me is the best place in the bed unless I am too restless in my sleeping search for one length of space where my whole body, including head, torso, and legs can remain in alignment.  The alignment doesn’t even have to be perpendicular to my pillows as you would think.  I’m happy to sleep diagonally as long as I don’t twist my spine too much. 

I’m going to go back to bed now and see where I can fit in.  I hope Kojak is still at the foot of the bed on his quilt. Even with him sleeping horizontally, when he’s there, I can bend my legs and still have plenty of room.   I hope Elvis has stretched out parallel to Jim’s legs, warmed by his body heat, in a perpendicular position on the bed.  This is the position he usually starts out in, and mostly stays in, every night.  That leaves one whole delicious portion of bed for me where I can sleep in an almost normal position.  Or at least I can until Kojak decides to move back into his place parallel to my pillows, against my back or my stomach, whichever way I lie down to begin with.  I will have to move over to make room for him, of course, because there is not a space wide enough for him to sleep in that position.  I’ve tried to instruct him to just turn perpendicular to my body, so there is room for everyone, but he will drag himself off to the foot of the bed to wait for me to fall asleep.  Then he can come back up and sleep the way he wants to. 

I know some people will not understand why I put myself through this awkward sleep ballet every night, twisting and contorting in my sleep, as pugs move to make body contact with me.  Those people will say, “Why in the world do you let the dogs sleep in the bed with you to begin with?”  And to those people I reply, “They are not dogs.  They are pugs.”  Enough said.