There’s a song by Death Cab for Cutie titled Brothers on a Hotel Bed, with a line “even landlocked lovers yearn for the sea like navy men”. As someone who has been living in landlocked states for the majority of my life, I understand this with great clarity.
There’s some scientific evidence about the health benefits of living near the coast (Article) that are wide ranging and in many ways, primal. I’ve heard benefits include negative ions in the air is similar to being surrounded 24/7 by a salt lamp, improving mood, sleep patterns, and more. During the brief time I lived in Southern California, I was still about an hour (without traffic) from the ocean. I highly doubt the benefits stretched quite that far, but I was close enough to eek out some of it, I’m sure.
Back to the Death Cab lyrics.
It’s partly about growing older, but I feel as though it’s also a relationship that’s reaching its end as well. “You may tire of me, as our December sun is setting, because I’m not who I used to be.”
I know so much about this. It’s hard not to change, and one of the great tragedies of life is that you’re not guaranteed to grow in the same direction, at the same pace, or even remotely in the same fashion as your romantic partners, friends, or family. It’s hard to have a lasting connection with someone who has grown to live on another planet.
But it’s with any relationship with another fallible human, you run the risk of being on different planes. It’s hard to find people who share the same wavelength, let alone for any amount of time. “Because now we say goodnight, from our own separate sides, like brothers on a hotel bed”
Sleeping in a bed with someone with whom you don’t connect, is weird and hard. I had a partner years ago, that didn’t like to be touched at night. I wasn’t able to rest my head or hands on him, let alone embrace. It was like there was a vast divide between us, lacking intimacy completely. I wasn’t allowed to even sleep close enough to feel his body heat. Previous to him, my first husband, near the end of our relationship we slept like burritos on opposite edges of a king size bed, in our own separate blankets. You easily could have snuck another full person and none of us would have touched.
It’s been like that more recently too, progressively getting further away. We slept in separate beds after a while, partly because we had a small child in ours with me who was still nursing, and partly because of good old fashioned stubbornness from us both. I had, for a long time, been wedged between him and her, scarcely occupying space at all. Just enough to slide in and out at bedtime or waking. But that’s what I’ve been conditioned to do.
Scarcely occupy space.
Not just in my romantic partnerships, but even as a child. I was watched by my grandfather, and he was old school. Rigid. Children are to be quiet, keep themselves busy without making a mess, or noise, or anything. We weren’t allowed outside, unless we were all outside. He couldn’t watch us, if he couldn’t see us. So for many many many hours growing up, I sat silent, not touching anything or anyone. That probably explains why I’m so outgoing now, and a hugger. Man, am I a hugger. My kid loves it (for now), but many adults think it’s weird, especially those in which I’m not particularly close or familiar.
I think physical connection makes people uncomfortable these days, in general. We are so accustomed to being totally isolated from physical contact, save for the strangely obligatory handshake. We often live in cubicles, our cars, small parts of large houses. Scarcely occupying space.
For me, this notion that we need to be isolated is totally nuts. I think it’s by and large a good chunk of why we are so miserable as a society. We simply aren’t wired to be separate. Granted, I dislike greatly strangers I do not invite to, touching me, I’ll shake hands with virtually anyone, and dish out shittons of hugs.
It just makes me truly sad that when we are disconnecting with someone, that one of the first, quiet signs, is that the gap between your physical space widens. I understand that you can’t spoon every night for decades, but we can be near, can’t we? I read somewhere that when relationships are near implosion, sex is still something that regularly happens, because as I’ve heard, needs. But KISSING stops long before the sex. It’s that intimate, face to face contact that falls away. “Like brothers on a hotel bed.”
Thanks for reading.
