Always Take a Pillow

This is one of what will probably be many retrospective nostalgic free-written expositions about my trip to France this summer.

I always take a pillow when I travel. Not an expensive or specially-designed travel pillow; I have a beat-up smooshy pillow which is probably filled with toxic disintegrating scraps of foam rubber. Whatever it's composed of, I'm able to hollow out part of it, fluff up the rest, fold it into a triangle, roll it, wedge it into a corner, or whatever I need at the time. It's my silly putty pillow. I have flown cross-country with this pillow. I have flown to Europe and back with this pillow. I have taken it on the bus, the train, and road trips. I love it.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says you should always bring a towel. I think the pillow is superior. It's more comfortable. It's superior for filling in the curved gap between the cramped coach-class plane seat and the curved bulkhead. You can hug a pillow when you're lonely. Besides, you can use a pillowcase as a towel, etc.

In today's world of airport paranoia, a pillow automatically makes you a sympathetic figure. Do terrorists carry pillows? I don't know, but anybody clutching a pillow like they're porting an oversized floppy teddy bear elicits an unconscious 'awww' response. It's automatic.

Okay, it may smell after a while, particularly if the trip is intercontinental or cross-continental. A pillow tends to soak up odors, and the airplane industrial-cleaner smell is all permeating. I can smell it on my skin even after a short flight. The pillow tends to soak it up too. Still, pillows can be washed, and before and after it still retains a core scent of home. I don't tend towards homesickness, but after a couple of weeks in a strange place it'll hit almost anyone; having the familiar smell and shape and feel of my own pillow made all the difference for me, even in a strange and uncomfortable bed with a thin, beaten-down mattress over a too-small particle board and a creaky industrial-pipe frame. It was my pillow, hollowed-out to let my head lie at the right angle, supporting my neck, familiar and perfect. I was home.