The Beds of 2020
Beds of 2020 is upon us, or we are upon them.
Sorry to have kept you waiting with this, I didn't mean to worry you.
They ran with “a relaxed facility set in a 1928 stately manor, ideal for rest, meetings and banquets”, which probably does sound more appealing than “a humourless Addams Family-themed Travelodge”, but it’s trivial really, because this was the only place to stay in the last village at the end of the road, Poland.
We lay, oddly wedged between three off-white walls, with day four finally behind us, nothing to our left and Slovakia to our right.
Sleepless from the inevitability of tomorrow’s every agonising step, I listened for bears. I hoped they’d find the packed lunch we were given at reception and left on the window sill outside when it was clear our room had neither the fridge, nor air space, for pâté sandwiches. Not ideal.
The next morning at 5am I tried not to cry, ate one quarter of a tepid apricot yoghurt and bandaged the open wounds on my feet. With everything we had, we hobbled the thin red border line, across two peaks toward our next bed, for no other reason than it was what we’d planned to do.
“Ben, wake up! Look at the sky!” Enough to open my eyes, but my body was locked from all the caution I’d clocked before bed. The angled wall/ceiling, the protruding shelf, the swinging window, low door frame and impossibly steep staircase down to the bathroom. If I’m not careful, I’d thought.
With all the providence and care in me, I rose and turned to see an immaculate map of the galaxy through our open window, and Iga beaming with happiness. I’ve never seen a night so vast, stars so close, a moon so huge or eyes so bright. Probably the most perfectly romantic moment there ever was.
“Ben, wake up! Let’s go outside and see the sunrise!” felt like five minutes later, but it was probably more like four hours. I wasn’t reluctant, just slow and tired, as we made tea and took it out to higher ground.
Defined by 360º of nature and our most picturesque mountain cabin, as the sun rose with all its providence and care. The Tatra Mountains lit up in the distance and we shined back at them.
"I must miss so much beauty in the world, being so anxious all the time" I thought, back in our room after breakfast. I leaned over to select some fresh socks from my bag before launching my body back up a full 1.87 metres and striking my head on the corner of the shelf.
It bled, and sent rockets of pain through my brain, and I gored the serenity with a series of unrepeatable words, screamed into the duvet.
Our host had it in mind that hers was a boutique residence. The sort of place an Instagram influencer would not pay for, with towel swans and rose petals, where you can be at one with nature without leaving the terrace or getting your flip flops muddy. We took our boots off at the door.
She asked what time we’d like breakfast and was bewildered by our intention to leave at 5am. “What about breakfast?”
As we sat here later in the afternoon, considering a return to the hydro-massage power-shower whilst watching pouring rain pound the terrace outside, a knock on our door announced the arrival of breakfast. Two silver platters of fresh mozzarella, chopped tomatoes, breads, spreads and cold cuts, elaborately arranged. Generous, perhaps excessive, and delivered straight to our miniature fridge for an influential morning feast.
There’s no easy way to say this, but the miniature fridge had an internal freezer compartment with a flimsy plastic door that wasn't properly shut, so at 4:30AM Iga and I sat together at the coffee table by lamplight, looking at our two silver platters of frozen foods, wondering what kind of a review they’d get, if we were that way inclined.
It rained and I know that’s not interesting to you, but up here where the only topics are where you’re walking to and what the weather is, this storm was significant.
The rocky trail down from Klimczok turned to rapids and the ground gave way beneath my feet. I reached up to regain my balance on a tall pine and a torrent of rainwater rushed down the inside of my sleeve and across my chest. Then without thought I did it again. My body was in survival mode and it no longer mattered how wet my underpants were.
Down in Szczyrk we wrung out our clothes in the shower and hung them in all the windows. There were no other residents, the pandemic and the weather had decimated business and the mayor had fallen out with the mayor of a nearby town and cancelled the bus services. Tempestuous.
With the evening free and the place to ourselves, we took out the map to check tomorrow’s route and passed out here waiting for the weather forecast app to refresh.
As daylight hours ran down, we sat outside at a picnic table with a slice of the most heavenly apple pie and a litre of lager, looking at the path up to Pilsko–considering the day’s final peak. It comes down to what motivates you.
The photo from the top, with your arms outstretched–that’s all very well, if you’ve some sort of christ complex. When I reach a summit I tend to look like the depths of breathless, sweaty hell. I want to sit down, have a cup of tea and check the map to see where I’m going next.
The thrill of pushing your body to the limit, setting records for speed or distance, altitude or degrees of danger–you can keep that too. Ticking boxes is boring, as is being carried home in them, I’d imagine.
In fairness the view’s probably great, but I’ve been happily looking at trees and birds and sweeping green vistas for eight straight days.
It's perfectly possible that both the beer and the pie were actually very ordinary, but they tasted like success; we’d walked all day through all kinds of beauty and pain and didn’t need to be any closer to the sky to justify being alive. So we went back inside for more apple pie.
It’s fortunate that this bed was horribly uncomfortable, with a sheet that barely reached the edge of its scummy mattress. It made leaving early easy, from which point the only way is up.
As it turns out, there are real benefits to waking up in the same bed every day. Comfort of course, and you know where the bathroom is in low light, and you get to groove into the most righteous routine, revealing times of the day you never knew existed like ‘delicious porridge breakfast’ time, and ‘morning’, and ‘afternoon coffee and cake’.
In between is where all the work happens. It makes so much sense to me now. Now that I’m not there anymore.
Britain’s exit from the EU means I can only spend 90 out of every 180 nights in my bed, in my apartment, with Iga, from January 1st 2021. It’s a loss of freedom so unfathomable, so utterly stupid, that I want to scream it into your face through a medical grade N95 filter mask.
“I stand not by my country, but by people of the whole fucking world. No fences, no borders. Free movement for all. Fuck the border.”
Propagandhi
But I’ll try to keep some order.
It’s not sympathy I’m here for–millions of people are suffering more than me, and you know I’ll work to get that freedom back with the time in between. I’m here to share the sixth and final Bed of 2020, my most frequented since 2010, with word that there are real benefits to waking up in the same bed every day. Don’t sleep through them, lest you wake up without.
