Fluffing Pillows

I remember talking with someone about "visitor etiquette" a few months back.  Y'know, like, what you do and how you behave when people come over to your house.  This person that I was talking to at the time made the comment that, when expecting company, a host should at least have the decency to fluff the pillows on the couch.

Without getting into the qualitative difference fluffing pillows would make on a home's overall ability to    woo the potential visitor, I am not necessarily advocating subjecting your guest to sitting on a couch glazed with two inches of animal hair, either.  At the same time, I think it's important to highlight the fact that having a guest over is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate who you really are underneath the fluffed pillows and the bang-up vacuum once-over.

Particularly if the fluffed pillows and bang-up vacuum once-over do not happen.

Y'see, I'm one week in graduate school.  I have, like, 16 chapters to read by Wednesday.  And an awesome job where I get to talk to people and listen to their stories.  And an amazing little two-turning-three-year-old who is fearlessly beginning to tell stories of his own.  And a talented and very busy super-teacher husband.  And groceries to buy.  And dinners to make.  And support-raising to do.

I don't have time for fluffing pillows, when it comes down to it.  And while I may make the attempt every once in a while, and while I may reward myself with a mid-afternoon coffee after doing so, it truth is, it may not just be okay that my guests see unfluffy pillows, but, a good thing that they do not.

Unfluffed pillows give us accessibility.  Unfluffed pillows offer us the opportunity to share where our time is going, and, similarly, grant us the honor and gift of humility when we say, My pillows are not fluffed!  How can we invite help if we don't admit need, if our pillows--whatever they actually are--don't show, even if a little sheepishly, a little oversight every now and again?

Here's to the foresight to admit our oversights.  Here's to unfluffed pillows.