The Chair
I have a swivel rocker my late wife and I purchased shortly after we bought our first house in 1975. It’s an Ethan Allen chair and it was our first piece of furniture that wasn’t a hand me down or bought from an outlet store. It was re-upholstered in 2010 when we built our current home. It long ago lost its central, front room role to bigger, fancier chairs, mostly recliners, and was relegated to the bedroom. It came back to the front room this year, when I took over its bedroom space for my music.
Now it sits by the fireplace by the front room windows, waiting for guests that seldom come. But last weekend, when my oldest son visited I noticed him sitting in the chair, except he was turned away from the room, and looking instead out of the windows. So, when he left, I sat in it and looked out the windows as well at the bird feeder on the porch and the pasture beyond and realized, it was still a great chair, with a great view, and I could put my glasses and my drink on the window sill, or my sandwhich, and sit in a comfortable chair that’s low to the ground and an easy place to be.
And as I sat in the chair I also realized how little I watched TV anymore, or really had company to come sit on my other chairs and couches. And the company part is mostly my fault. I could invite people over, but I’m usually the one on the road, and my wife was the entertainer, anyhow. And I also realized how much I enjoyed looking at the natural world of my mesquite tree and my garden and the pasture and the hills beyond and the sky above while doing nothing other than just looking, trying to slow down in a world that seems hell bent on rushing to nowhere simply because we can.