story of the story chair

When I’d left home for university, I’d rented a small studio apartment in the woods across from campus.  It had been about a forty-minute walk to class with all my books in hand, no backpack, and every kind of weather, but I’d thought it well worth the sacrifice to bypass the distractions of dormitory living and have a place to call my own.

For me, off-campus living had been ideal, with one big caveat.  Unlike the dorms equipped with basic necessities such as beds and desks, I’d stood before the magic portal to adulthood, unlocked the door, and settled my gaze upon a completely empty space.  I’d stowed hand-me-down dishes in the cupboards, lined up books in milk crates I had stacked on the floor, lit a table lamp that had no table to support it, and sat on the carpet with my back against the wall whenever I’d wanted to read for leisure or for study.  I’d attended classes during the day and worked nights, living paycheck to paycheck to afford the rent, and I’d urgently needed at least one chair.  Correction: I’d needed at least one super affordable chair.

Consignment shops thrived in the area, feeding on the discarded belongings of the transient academic set.  I’d looked there first, of course, but I’d left utterly chairless.  Not willing to risk the questionable history and possible infestations of used upholstered furniture, I’d asked around to see if any of my friends or classmates knew of a place where I might fulfill my quest for an inexpensive new chair.  Conferring with a guy who’d considered warm beer and breakfast synonymous, I’d—perhaps not surprisingly—ended up in a barn. Strangely, it had been the best advice I’d received. A vast, unadorned structure, the barn had turned out to be as unfinished as most of the wood furnishings it offered.  But every piece was brand new, of solid wood construction, and reasonably priced--not as reasonable as the mangled $20 Naugahyde couch another acquaintance had so proudly purchased earlier that month, but nowhere near as frightening either. Warm beer guy had really envied that sofa.

As a teen, I’d frequently toted my books into our backyard, perching upon the patio swing to read them.  The motion of it always soothed me, leaving me so relaxed I could tune out the rest of the world as if it no longer existed, then disappear completely into the story.  I hadn’t realized how much I needed to find that kind of serenity again until I saw it: all the way across a crowded furniture barn, I glimpsed a pine-finished rocking chair destined to be mine.   I’d purchased it that day—the first real furnishing in my first apartment—and I’d regularly rocked away, if only temporarily, the many stresses of my new grown-up independence.

That chair had seen me through countless hours of study, through work, correspondence, creative inspiration, and into marriage.  A couple years post-nuptials, I’d moved it to the nursery where it had gently rocked me through reveries of the baby on its way.  It had gone on to support me through career changes, personal challenges, divorce, and fresh starts. In my early reporting days, before I’d invested in a proper desk chair, I’d even pulled that rocker up to my work area and typed the columns and articles waiting to go to press.  The rocking chair had supercharged my elation when I’d been already happy, calmed me when I’d been wracked with worry, and comforted me in times of loss.  For many years, it had been used almost daily.  

Through it all, that first furnishing of my first apartment had migrated with me to ten different residences.  Either resting on one arm and rail, or front side facing down, the chair had been wedged into the back of the car for numerous local moves.  It had hitched a ride in commercial moving vans over three cross-country relocations.  On every pilgrimage, it had suffered another minor beating, leaving small scratches, little gouges, and other telltale scars of its journeys.  And, when we came to Washington, it had braved the near-daily consequences of a wet dog on the premises.  Whether Sadie had just returned from a walk in the rain, a bath, or a regular ear cleaning to stave off the infections to which she’d been so prone, she had invariably shaken out her wet fur, or wet ears, in the immediate splash zone of that poor rocking chair.  By 2010—the year we said goodbye to our Great Pyrenees/Labrador—the finish had become splotchy and worn away on the front edge of the seat and parts of the left side.  By the summer of 2012, I’d accepted that it was time for that old chair to go.

I’d considered buying a new rocking chair.  Despite our history, my attachment to the chair over the years was more pragmatic than sentimental.  Why replace something I liked that was also still perfectly functional?  Decades later, however, enough damage had been inflicted on it that replacement had seemed warranted.  Yet I couldn't help toying with the idea of reinventing the existing chair instead, just to see if I could do it.  I’d imagined a conversation piece—an overgrown objet d'art—that would remain a usable chair, a grown-up story chair.  I’d had nothing to lose.  My first-ever furnishing was already distressed (and not in a decoratively chic way), so I’d eagerly embarked on the challenge knowing I could revert to Plan B and replace the rocker if needed.  In August of 2012, I’d sanded it down and filled in the more noticeable scars before applying multiple base coats of paint.  I’d added shaded color blocks to the seat and headrest that fall, then other obligations and projects took precedence, and the chair went into hiding.  Covered in sheets to keep the dust at bay, my experiment had sat, untouched, for years until the fall of 2014.  Though the work was intermittent, over the next several months, I’d renewed my determination to complete it.  As soon as I returned to my project-in-waiting, paintbrush in hand, I’d been reminded that I had clearly gone mad just prior to designing its new look.  With my short stature and, thus, short arms, applying any kind of detail work to the headrest--with the protruding seat serving as a constant obstacle--had proven nearly impossible.  But only nearly.  The process had been uncomfortable always, taxing usually, and, at times, for lack of a longer reach, I had to compromise accuracy and settle on good enough.  Still, I’d persisted, if only out of desperation to rid the living room of sheet-draped furniture.  Upon the pine cone’s completion, I’d moved on to the seat, adding one of our local butterflies, a feather, and the essential story-chair words, “Once upon a time, deep in the forest…”

After almost three years, I had finally finished the chair on the afternoon of May 28, 2015. It seems such a long time ago now—a long time and many, many hand-painted furnishings since.

Restored to its special place by the wood-burning stove, the rocking chair remains there to this day.  There's a floor lamp at its side and many shelves of books nestled into one corner of the room, creating a warm, cozy spot to read or reflect.  What began as a new chair in a faraway woodland dwelling, came full circle when it evolved into a new chair once more in this, our woodland abode, a happy home encircled by every one of my hand-painted elements: coniferous and deciduous guardians, noble black bears, fluttering swallowtails, and the striped blue souvenirs of visiting Steller's Jays.  Upon the chair's intricately designed seat, stories are read, imagined, remembered.  And, by way of its renewed aesthetic, that rocking chair will, forevermore, tell its own story too, a story that began--and resumed--once upon a time, deep in the forest...