Do you agree?

This morning, I was out on my morning walk, getting my Lyme-sore body moving at the start of the day (always the most challenging time), and I thought of pillows and – oddly – my mother. My mother’s mother was born in New England and sent away to year-round boarding school at age 6. When she grew up and had her first born, my mother, she asked her school marm what to do when my mother cried as an infant. And the reply my grandmother got was to put my mother in a crib in the woods during the day, and just bring her in for nursing. Clearly, there was not a lot of cuddling happening.

And my mother didn’t have those skills as a parent. Her philosophy was: children are like cabbages: you plant them and watch them grow. So she planted a garden: 6 of us.

Years later, when I would travel with her in my teens and twenties, she always always told me : bring your pillow. And now, as I consider offering pillows for soothing anyone and everyone, I realize: that’s where I realized the potency of

A PILLOW. My mother wasn’t cuddled. But imagine that had her pillow.

And at the beginning of her life, she and her pillow were out there. In the woods. She was surrounded by nature, which became her love:

(front of same pillow as above…. a leaf/b leaf. get it? playing with words)

My mother was surrounded by those leaves. Dancing on beautiful trees. AND

surely, her pillow.

(Peaches, most cuddled dog ever…)