That chair, the whitish wicker one in the corner with breaks in the wood, is still alive. On this evening at the end of April, we cheered on the arrival of May one week from today. The open windows bringing sweet mountain air, contrasted with the first memory of the chair in the store window, and now with a mop in front of it; it is most likely true, that this chair means nothing to anyone else.
Twenty plus years ago it was bought from a store where it was on sale. Fifty-nine bucks a lot cheaper from the original price of seventy-five I could afford that. I needed to afford that. And when it came up the stairs in the arms of my husband at the time, I knew it would change me. The chair in the store window became my inspirer. The chair that allured any corner, any lighting, anyway I sat in it, or watched someone sit in it would never change. It was beautiful.
I remember removing it not so long ago, from being sat on. It was becoming a challenge to keep the wood from breaking. Even with a pillow, or two, positioned to keep the wicker easier to sit on, the chair had become used and broken.
It was aligned with me tonight. Directly across on the front deck in my Arizona house, far away from the city, and the joy of affording one piece of furniture on sale, the chair looked at me. Among the newer things I had bought and acquired along the way like new chairs, hand crafted furniture from artisans, yard sale finds that were exciting to bring home, on this day that chair became beautiful again; it took a second bow and for the love of growth and life, I silently clapped for her.
It sits alone. It stays in the background with vibrations from the hands of my family still grabbing the sloping arms and leaving their intentions inside it. She belongs to me, this chair. I will never let her go to another home, yard, or get dumped because she is broken. I think I will redecorate and put some summer plants, ivy perhaps across the weave of wicker and let it turn gray, dry, and also allow it to have a new role in life of giving beauty with some help from nature, for a second, and hell even a third time.