The Princess and the Pea Redux

When I was a little girl, my favorite bedtime story was The Princess and the Pea. This little masterpiece was written by Hans Christian Anderson in the 1800’s. In the event you are unfamiliar, here are the broad strokes:

A dripping wet, forlorn young woman shows up at a cottage in the woods, inhabited by a little old man and a little old woman on a cold rainy night. The young woman declares herself a royal princess and asks for a place to lay her head for the night. Now, the little old man and the little old woman are skeptical since the young woman appeared so disheveled. So, they decide to put the young woman to the test. Before showing the young woman to her bed, they hid a pea under her mattress. Then, they gather all the mattresses in the Kingdom and stack them nearly to the ceiling atop the pea. They conclude, that if the young woman is truly a princess, she will be, of course, highly sensitive in nature, and will sense the pea, even from underneath the towering stack of mattresses, causing her a fitful sleep.

The young woman wakes in the morning, and as politely as only a princess could, laments that she was unable to sleep, due to some unknown irritation causing her great discomfort. The pea, then, represents her annoyance. For our purposes, any annoyance.

Alas, the young girl has proven to the little old man and the little old woman that she is indeed a princess. I’ve done a little research on how literary buffs interpret the moral of this timeless story. The consensus: We must not make assumptions based on outward appearances. In other words, you can judge a book by its cover.

Allow me now to take artistic license to a new level about the moral of this story. My apologies to the great Hans Christian Anderson in advance. Because the true moral of this story is: You can never have too many mattresses.

Hear me out. We already know that the pea represents annoyance. A little irritation. Now, let’s assume that each mattress represents a barrier, a comfort, that provides distance from that annoyance. Often, in our day-to-day lives, those irritations accumulate. It would stand to reason then, that the more peas we have tucked away, then the more layers we need to pile up, creating greater and greater distance between ourselves and our daily frustrations. Constructing this distance is the only way to bring comfort and hopefully then, a peaceful sleep.

Sleep is a complicating science, no doubt. But, more often than not, it really is the day-to-day accumulation of agitations, big and small, that cause us to toss and turn at night.

I venture to say that each of us can easily list the irritations confronting us right now. Examples abound. But it can take just a bit more thought to make a list of what might comfort us and help buffer our agitations. But if we can ever hope for a sweet, peaceful sleep, we’ve got to try. That is my commitment to myself for 2022. To walk through my days in awareness of how I can accumulate more mattresses, i.e., comforts soothe me, allowing me to set aside daily frustration.

Today, my comforts, and yours, may be different than they were yesterday or will be tomorrow. Today, my soft, sweet mattresses might include a good book, even if I have time to enjoy just a page or two. A step outside into the fresh air, even if 3 minutes is all I the time I can find to inhale the outdoors. Yesterday, there was pudding. The soft texture and the strong vanilla taste, each spoonful brought back moments with my grandma when I was a little girl. Tomorrow, it will be wearing that blouse that brings out the color of my eyes and that offers a soft silky texture that clings to my body all day long. Later in the week, I might stop at the grocery and choose one perfect peach. Just ripe enough, the anticipation of biting into the sweet, tangy fruit being better than the eating itself.

Anyway, you get the idea. We so often jump right into problem solving mode, first thing in the morning and then drag daily problems into bed with us at night. Pesky peas! I know that if I can choose to remember, and bring the simple comforts that represent a soft, inviting pile of mattresses into my life each day, not only does problem solving become more palatable and effective, but I am much more likely to find peaceful sleep and wake refreshed the day to come.

Yes, my friends. The moral of the story really is: You can never have too many mattresses. Wishing you pleasant dreams. 😊