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... And So to Bed
| Article
# : |
13284 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1987 |
2,157 Words |
| Author
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Rosemary G. Rennicke
Rosemary G. Rennicke is a freelance writer from Buckingham,
Pennsylvania, who specializes in interior design and antiques. |
We spend a third of our lives in bed - and that just counts sleeping. So why not do it in style? After all, we lavish more money and attention on vacation condos or status-mobiles, though neither is as important to our health or well-being as the bed.
It is in bed that we rest and romp, come into the world and often depart it, dream great dreams and flee deep hurts. Casanovas and courtesans have earned their reputations abed, and others horizontally prone have used the bed as a springboard to creation: Authors from Cicero to Twain have written in bed, DaVinci reworked his drawings and Rossini composed his operas while reclining, and Matisse, when bedridden with age, sketched on the walls around him.
But mostly we sleep. Today, amidst so much luxury - satin sheets, plump down comforters and posture-caressing mattresses - the slightest ding in the polyurethane foam pillow causes insomniac tossing and turning. Our ancestors, however, endured much more discomfort than the proverbial pea in the mattress for the sake of a snooze.
The first bed
The first bed was the ground, on which prehistoric sleepers nestled with piles of hides, furs, moss, grass or leaves. A lucky few slept on natural stone shelves or hollows formed in some caves. While Mother Earth continued to provide a hard, yet ever-available bed throughout the millennia, man gradually progressed to building structures specifically for sleeping.
With wood so rare a commodity in the desert, early
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