chair/
Today, I went to look for a desk.
I desperately need a place to write and organize in my room: books and papers strewn over the floor, piled under the window, scattered next to my bed. In my new life, I have to turtle my world on my back, my computer and phone, notebooks and journals, manila file folders that help me pretend a brain. My house is on one corner, the offices and Mill building a block away, then my studio another block and a half, maybe two. Each office or living space is on the second or third floor. Unless I want to be running around (believe me, done and done) everything needs to go in the backpack, but half the time I can’t see what I need in the chaos. Or, it is all equally urgent.
This morning, I realized instead of waiting for an old desk to arrive, or maybe a door on two saw horses like I will have in my studio, I could pony up for my own. Besides, I got paid my $200 for a week—go wild (on a budget)! I visited a couple antique stores, because they are lovely and low priced compared to the west, but seriously still too champagne. It is amazing how quickly the calculus devolves down. In Morrisville, or Morristown, (there are two and I have no idea which is which), I went to the reSource store, a state run collective, like a Salvation Army.
And I buy a chair instead.
Really, it is maybe perfect. $40. Plus $2.42 tax. It was $80 last week and she just lowered it to $50 and I tried to look pathetic so she would give it to me for less, but I secretly just think she knew it was my chair. I am not very good at pathetic. People at VSC were aghast, they often find them for $8-$12. So now I might be extravagant.
Butter yellow brocade with butterflies and dragonflies, branches and stems. Berries. Crickets. I don’t even know what else. It is low and long, almost Danish modern, but covered in butterflies. It looks like it might not be comfortable, then you sit in it, and it is seriously ridiculously comfortable. More, it is the color of hand churned cream spread on toast. No stains. The cushions perfect on the flip side. The iPhone makes it slightly blue. I am telling you, organic butter.
It is in the back of my car. I think it might need to live in my studio, which I move into tomorrow, a place to read in a corner. Something to lure me when the days get cold. Or hot, or too perfect, or not perfect enough. So I will do the work. I actually put my legs up over the arm as I was testing it, slipped off my shoes and curled in.
I remember reading a story to my daughters about a woman and her chair. It was a favorite. But maybe it is not a gender thing, maybe we all need a place to sit down.
Also, a picture for my dad, because I do something he used to do… something else that serves as a support. Ok, he wrote parts numbers and these are two quotes, but still, I think it is in the genes:
My favorite, from the poem Locale: “A whole life doesn’t seem enough to own a body.”––Sara Mumolo. Hand writing. Got to be ready when the perfect thing arrives.
chair
CHer/
noun
1. a separate seat for one person, typically with a rest for the back and four legs, rests for the arms.
2. something that supports like a chair.
3. a seat of office, or authority; the person in charge of a meeting or organization
an official position of authority, a leader
TENNIS another term for umpire.
3. a professorship.
4. a particular seat in an orchestra.
5. a metal socket holding a railroad rail in place.
verb
1. to seat
2. act as chairperson of, or preside over (direct, run, lead, be in charge of)
3. to install in office
4. carry (someone) aloft in a chair or in a sitting position to celebrate a victory.
Origin
Middle English: from Old French chaiere (‘bishop's throne, etc.,’ chaise ‘chair’), from Latin cathedra ‘seat, pulpit,’ from Greek kathedra . Compare with cathedral.
