Chairs

This would be my ultimate dream.

Where we sit when we’re relaxing or reading or watching televisions is important to us, don’t you think?  I would bet that everyone, no matter how elegant or humble the home, has a favorite spot.

My grandfather had his straight-backed wooden chair, with 3 slats at the back.  Only the seat was upholstered.  He sat in it to read his paper and listen to the radio, his feet on an ottoman.  My grandmother didn’t sit down exactly; she perched in between chores, unless she was energetically playing rousing hymns on the piano.

As a teenager I used to flop down in my Dad’s leather club chair with footstool (which had been beautifully reupholstered by him) to read and to nap before I had to help with dinner.  Later Dad would watch TV and read and often fall asleep there himself.

My mother has a favorite chair, too, but I don’t remember her having one while we kids were growing up.  She was too busy waiting on my father, or refereeing fights between my brother and me, or going to choir practice or washing the kitchen floor.  When she stopped it was more to nurse a migraine in her darkened bedroom.  Now she has a recliner/rocker, which she’s used as headquarters for many years, next to her an end table, one of those blond wood, 2-level ones from the 50s.  It’s piled high with half-done crossword puzzles, People magazines, books and pencils.  Beside her on the floor is her purse.

We have broken tradition in our home.  We have a large Mission-style couch, which I bought when I was working and had money to spend on furniture.  It has three big cushions.  The one on the right is “my area”; the one on the left is my husband’s.  I have two sofa pillows on my end, one I bought in Greece, the other I got just a few months ago in Vancouver, B.C., and a crescent-shaped airplane pillow, filled with buckwheat, to burrow into while I read books, newspapers, magazines, write, play with my iTouch or watch TV.  It is the center of my operations, where I drink my morning coffee, where I do my thinking, where I talk on the phone.

At the other end of the couch my husband watches TV.  For anything else he has another place, a loveseat, which looks like a large version of Archie Bunker’s chair, or Frazer Crane’s dad's chair, though it doesn’t have any duct tape repairs on it…yet.  This is where he reads magazines, plays with his iTouch and naps.  I have tried for years to buy him a nice chair but to no avail.  It’s formed to his body like a comfortable pair of shoes.

When I visited my son and his family in Wisconsin earlier this month I realized early on that I was sitting in someone else’s spot.  It didn’t take much intellect to decipher the longing looks and outright plaintive meows from the two cats in the house.  In the evening when the two adult humans in the house inhabit the big leather couch to read or watch television, the cats, Lucy and Sadie, share the “big, comfy” chair, as it’s called. The friendlier one, Lucy, sits on the seat cushion, the more skittish Sadie lies alertly on the chair back.  I felt badly that they had to find other quarters while I was there, but I wasn’t about to perch on the windowsill so they could have their “spots”.  Other cats might have snuggled up to me and shared the area, but not these two.

 I have experienced the same emotions as these cats when people are visiting us.  The visitors tend to take one or the other end of the couch, where my husband and I are usually ensconced, with my feet on his lap, our fleece blanket warming us.  During these visits I cannot stretch out as usual and my husband is banished to his loveseat.  At least I get my end of the couch.  Recently my husband’s mother was visiting.  She was with us for 2 weeks and when she left for home we both took possession once again of our beloved corners, just like the cats did when I left my son’s house.  We were purring and happy again, like the cats must have been, back in our adored and comfy nests.