A Small Comfort

I must confess I have become something of a linens snob despite my otherwise cheapskate nature.

And no one actually understands or even suspects that it stems from the desire to recreate a memory.

A memory not of any particular event or specific moment in time, but of the feeling of comfort that only a child can form.

One whose existence is not burdened by the inescapable rush of time or the crushing weight of others' expectations.

Back then the idea of comfort felt more like an absolute.

An achievable and familiar state of being.

Comfort was waking with the sheets cool and silky against my skin.

The start of a new day heralded by the sing song of birds and the bars of morning light peeking through the curtains.

Comfort was drifting off to sleep listening to the clink of pots and dinner plates being washed in the kitchen.

The end of the day neatly closed with hair combed, stories read, and prayers said.

Comfort was waking in my grandparents feather bed on a school day afternoon with the fever finally broken.

Eager to watch cartoons and play outside without another thought to the pain now firmly in the past.

Comfort was drifting off to sleep whenever and wherever my body demanded and yet awaking safely in my bed

Always abounding with the hope and desire of all the pleasures of life awaiting me.

Money can't buy happiness, but can it buy simple comfort?

Can any combination of down, memory foam, and percale bring back what I have lost?

These days I feel I must drag myself from the clutches of sleep and it is only the endless pressing urgency of meetings, deadlines, and obligations that is pushing me to move while draining me of feeling.

And so I went in search of that feeling.

The one that awakened all my senses.

The renewing mixture of love, security, painlessness, and restfulness that smoothed away the rough and jagged edges of my world and made everything fresh.

For years I only caught glimpses of it.

Maybe on a bright Saturday morning or while on vacation.

But my mind allowed it to slip away caught in the rip tide of worries before I could embrace it.

But one day, in a week or a month or really a year filled with struggles. I found my old feeling.

In the sleepy eyes of my son as he awoke from his afternoon nap.

And the comfort rebloomed within my soul, not as it was, but as I now understood it.