BED CLOTHING

Having been raised in a household where bed dressing etiquette involved a mattress cover, bottom sheet, top sheet, blanket and then bedspread pulled over the pillow(s) and smooshed under them to keep the puffy look, I tended to follow that procedure for many years in my own housekeeping.

  Crisp linen, clothesline-dried is pleasant.  Blankets that go from winter wool to summer cotton have a reassuring consistency, somehow. 

The bed looks nice and neat and to disturb that smoothness denotes some drama of distress that caused one to fling self on the daytime bed in dismay. 

I then spent many years in a more casual approach, likely influenced by a trio of sons who felt a bed left as was when gotten out of in the morning was then ready for entering again in the evening. 

The practice of  sheets dried in sun and wind has continued – ongoing joy – and I like flannelette in winter, linen in summer. 

A month or so ago I changed beds and on a whim went back to a bedspread with pillows tucked under to resemble a pigeon's breast.  It was okay and vaguely satisfying in the way that nostalgia can be. 

But,  yesterday, the more suitable-to-my-nature ritual of bed making was reclaimed.  The gorgeous very old quilt has replaced the bedspread.  The pillow has its 'homespun'  linen cover which serves at night for function  and serves by day for beauty. 

The gypsy 'bedroll' mentality in me is satisfied.