Wednesday, September 07, 2011

You know the whole nature vs. nurture discussion?  We learn some behaviors organically (nurture) and some we are hard wired for (nature).  For example, my dad’s sister, Aunt Donna, picks at her fingers, mostly her cuticles as I recall.  Aunt Donna escaped Nebraska early on and has lived in California for I think longer than I have been alive.  Yet, I pick at my cuticles just like she does.  My sister, 14 years my junior, also picks at her cuticles and now that I think about it – and he may not admit it – my brother does too.  It’s a nature thing.

My immediate family has even more in common, but I am confused because I think is a nature thing….not a nurture thing….but…: We all love to sleep with dead pillows.

I washed bed linens today and while we all have the regulation two pillows (or more if you’re getting fashionable MOM) per bed, ONE IS OURS and then there is the other one.  The ONE THAT IS OURS is a flat pancake.  Mom, dad and I – all flat. 

Mom’s is an old Pan-Am airline pillow.  It was small to begin, but now it is pancake flat and she covers it with a “those cotton boxers are so thin you can see through them” white cotton pillowcase.  Dad’s, and I get verklempt here (I’ll tell you later), is a feather pillow.  I believe it was originally Goose down, king sized and now it is chick fuzz, baby bear bed size. My pillow is an inherited, poly fill that has been folded incessantly from my new bedroom, new life restless sleep patterns.  It’s getting to be just right.

I now texted my sister to see if she’s still up.  If she is, I’m asking about her pillow preference.  I’d text my brother, too, but he is a typical brother and does not normally respond in the same decade.

While we wait, I will tell you the story of my emotional abuse at the hands of my ex husband.  In the late ‘80s when we moved to Atlanta, we lived in an apartment complex that backed up to a stream and forest.  For those of you who do not know, Atlanta is in the middle of a national forest, so this geographic location of our apartment is not unusual.  My husband gave me grief about my pillow.  Always did.  Especially when I brought it on our honeymoon.

Similar to daddy’s today, it was a king sized, Goose down pillow that had been reduced in size from my snuggle love.  I cherished that pillow.  Maybe it was jealousy, I’m still not sure.  When we moved from that apartment into our first home together, my husband (former baseball catcher) threw my pillow into the stream in the forest.  In front of my eyes.  And he laughed.  It still hurts.

Have not yet heard from my sis, she must be in bed because it is 10pm here, 11pm there and she is a pregnant working nurse practitioner.  However, my brother just called!!!!  I’m running to the phone now….

“What is your sleeping pillow of preference?” I asked.

“What” he reacted?

“What is your sleeping pillow of preference?” you know what I said, I thought.

Thinking to himself my sister is in the drink again, he politely replied, “I try to sleep on my back.  When I sleep on my back I do not use a pillow for I find it uncomfortable.”  For I find it uncomfortable, this is verbatim.  My brother speaks like I would imagine a person of royalty would speak.

“However,” he continued, “when I sleep on my side, as I oft do, I prefer my flattened pillow, folded in half.”

“Ah ha!”  I exclaimed! “It is NATURE!” and I explained my theory.  He told me to get off the wine and go to bed.  As I shall but not before I make this point:

We were not told, showed, forced, or else ways introduced to the love of and preference for a flat pillow.  Yet, the five of us that comprise our nuclear family all prefer dead pillows!  Yes, my sister did not reply, but I believe she is enjoying the recuperative sleep only a gestating mother can enjoy….on a flat pillow.