Safe and sound, as most people understand it, is for the coil of sitting in a corner, knees under your double chin and rocking back and forth in your own pool of vomit and faeces. The notion of "safe and sound" is the comfort of being unharmed and free from injury. For you and others.
On the other side lies the rest of the bodies. Those left in your wake. Those no longer able to feel the rolls of their chunky necks warming up their upper chests. Their heaving coughs no longer bringing joy to their partners as they listen on in the middle of the night, choking back air and feeling the nudge of the tennis ball on their shirt backs give out and whimper.
Physical, yes. And then we listen to the strum of a Danelectro on the hill top, the man with a stringy mane ripping through that four chord melody. A song brings out the clouds and a man in a white coat looks you up, looks you down, scribbles on his borrowed clipboard and walks away. You have matriculated, collected the points necessary to advance into the next stage of being. Depressed.
We all can't live in Bendigo and think we're drinking boxed wine in Renmark. It's not some kind of steakhouse. But the stakes are in your house, in your hands. The safe, the sound. The warning people have on your door, "Abandon all hope ye who leave shoes on across the threshold."
"Safe and sound" has as much to do with your fitting in with the rest of society as it does your fit in a coffin or hospital bed. If you are safe and you are sound, you're no real threat to the rest of the ward.
Trauma escalates many things, and your paranoia is prime among them. This notion of being "safe and sound" you know to be a lie until you find the smell of your sweat and dead skin cells that line your home. This is where you rest, where you sleep at night and call out to the sandman. Your mind rests, your body relaxes and you can truly call your state of being at peace.
Sound of mind, safe in keeping. Time for your spongebath, Mr. Pants².
Written on Wednesday, 4 July 2012