FRANCES WHITING

“Perhaps there’s some relief to be found in life’s smaller questions”

Working in a newspaper office, I’m privy to the many discussions and arguments which occur naturally between journalists, mostly over who didn’t replace the milk in the office fridge to be honest, but also about the issues of the day.

Recently, I’ve heard talk about Scomo’s performance on net zero emissions (lukewarm, like our oceans), the odds of Trump running in 2024 (generally thought to be high, unless he actually does shoot someone and, even then, not out of the question), and fouryear-old Cleo Smith being found (general elation all round).

But rarely have I seen such passions unleashed as the debate last week which occurred when someone casually mentioned she quite likes a soft pillow.

Dear God, the poor girl may as well have said she quite likes sleeping with a nest of live eels under her head, such was the reaction her seemingly harmless announcement produced.

“A soft pillow? A soft pillow?” one chap said in a voice not unlike Lady Bracknell shrieking “a handbag!” in The Importance of Being Earnest. I then watched on as anyone within earshot chimed in to what became a heated argument about the merits of soft versus hard pillows, wherein the words “soft pillow, soft head” were muttered at some point, along with “chiropractically superior”.

I don’t have an opinion either way, so I contributed by throwing in the little known fact that after five years, most pillows are composed pretty much wholly of dust mites anyway, which no one seemed to appreciate. One offered up the outstanding – to me anyway – piece of information that she always, always, travels with her own pillow.

Sort of like the Queen does with pastries. This is a fact. Queen Elizabeth never goes anywhere without her own supply of scones and Scottish Dundee cake, which makes perfect sense to me.

I’d imagine after the 18,000th time of seeing people march about in front of you for hours on end for no apparent reason, you’d want a bit of cake too, now wouldn’t you? But your own pillow?

As someone who’s content to roll up an old T-shirt and pop it under her head, and who once slept on an actual car tyre, none of this made sense to me. Until it did.

Because it occurred to me, listening to my colleagues debating the various merits of the firm versus the medium-to-firm pillow, that life is really nothing more than a series of questions, isn’t it? There’s one right there.

Some of them are writ so large in our minds and hearts to render them almost impossible to answer.

Yes or no? Give in or give up? Accept or decline? Me or him? Stay or walk away? Hold on or let go?

And maybe it’s these little questions that lay the way for the bigger ones, and keep us well oiled in the art of decision making.

Perhaps there’s some relief to be found in life’s smaller questions, some respite from it all.

So, on that note, hard or soft pillow? Vegemite in or out of the fridge? Ears tucked into the shower cap, or on the outside? Milk in the tea first, or last? Top sheet and doona, or just the doona, sans sheet?

That’s put the cat among the pigeons.