Taking to Your Bed | Fort Bend Focus Magazine

By Patti Parish-Kaminski, Publisher

Never underestimate the concept of “taking to your bed” for an extended period of time. It’s cheaper than therapy and extremely effective.

Growing up with Mother, Mawmaw, aunts, cousins and the vast assortment of female friends and relations, porch talk often centered around the community, individual members of the community to be more precise. I can recall many a time when my female matriarchs would talk about some other female “taking to their bed.”

Granted in a rural Southern community in the 60s and 70s, health care was not readily available. There was a clinic in town and regardless of your ailment – broken bones, common colds, heart attacks or female issues – the clinic, along with its single practitioner, was your go to. More often than not the clinic was completely bypassed for a visit to the local pharmacist, who also cured all ails with his symbiotic relationship with the town doctor. That being said there existed a plethora of ailments that went untreated, and especially for the ladies in the community, that often manifested in a lady “taking to her bed.”

I always associated the term with a certain degree of negativity based on what I heard said about such ladies. It was akin to a malady, significant grief or just downright laziness when my people discussed the action of a lady “taking to her bed.” As a little girl, I knew that I never wanted to be one to “take to my bed.”

As an adult my perspective on this particular activity has changed largely due to my girlfriend Jennifer. Jennifer routinely “takes to her bed” typically on a Sunday, and we all know she’s down for the count. She won’t be meeting us, talking to us or doing anything that she cannot accomplish from between her satiny sheets on this precise day. There will be no rising and shining for her; it’s a day filled with lounging and loafing. It’s a physical and mental health reset – especially effective if she’s got a busy week coming up or has just come off of one.

I never gave it much thought when Jen “took to her bed” periodically until this past week. I had experienced a particularly busy and aggravating week. I was tired, cranky, curt – that’s Mr. Kaminski’s term when my vernacular becomes more direct than usual. I told him on Saturday night not to wake up me the next morning, because I was sleeping in. He offered no argument to my admonition. In my defense, I was being helpful. It was a cautionary statement designed to keep him unscathed.

Sunday morning rolled around, and all was quiet on the home front mid-morning. I began my usual routine of water, meds, weather checking, outfit procuring – and then it happened. I stopped. I went around the house collecting supplies: books, Diet Coke, candle, snack. And I did it. I kept my jammies on and “took to my bed” with accoutrements in tow.

I spent a solid half a day in my bed, and it didn’t suck. Now I did try to make it a whole day, but I just couldn’t quite make that happen. I think this “taking to my bed” for extended periods of time will just have to be something that I ease into – kind of like exercising or cooking – a little goes a long way.

All in all, I highly recommend participating in the decadent debauchery of “taking to your bed.” It doesn’t mean what is used to. See y’all next week – on the porch!

Patti Parish-Kaminski