The Couch
Between Eve and Linus, all of our upholstered furniture was pretty much destroyed long before we had a chance to get uptight about what a baby might do to all of our "nice things" (by which I mean the household furnishings and not other once-prime assets, like my once-round/now-flat butt *sob*). The blue TV couch was done for as soon as Eve laid eyes on it back when the two of us ladies finally moved in with Simon, and when Linus was introduced into the fold a few years later, his fine feline sister promptly introduced him to the couch we had on loan from Teddy but then never gave back, for obvious reasons.
Of the two pieces of furniture that have survived thus far unscathed, one is the heirloom rocking chair that the cats are under no circumstances allowed to even glance toward, and the other is the orange couch in Wombat's nursery.
Six years ago in March, Simon and I shared a moment on that couch that was nothing, really, except that it was the beginning of something that became Something, which is, in fact Everything we are today.
Back in the old apartment, Eve watched her birds from the couch, and I once participated in an impromptu strip tease there, which Simon caught on film (well, figuratively film; it's a folder of digital photos buried somewhere deep in our computer) that captures me when my torso was as tight and supple as the couch remains despite all the extracurricular non-sitting it has weathered over the years.
In the old place, we served tea and martinis from the couch, and when we moved into the new place, it became the classy library settee. When we moved the library to make way for Wombat, the couch stayed in what became the nursery, and now is the place where all three of us gather to read bedtime stories (or sometimes just two of us if Dad's at band practice).
Nothing elicits groans from Simon quite like a movie-business-type person saying--as if it were the first time anyone had thought about it this way--"You know...in a way the city of New York/Paris/Akron is almost like...a character in the film." Boo! Hiss! LAAAAAME. And yet...this orange couch is almost like...a character in the story of our life. Simon first got it (and a long-gone-before-my-time matching chair) on loan from a friend in college with the promise that if she ever wanted it back it was hers. Now she'd have to fight me for it; it's practically a member of the family.
(More here.)
Audience participation time! Tell me I'm not the only one who gets weepy-eyed sentimental about furniture. Feel free to admit everything from tender feelings toward a lamp or what you named your most excellent toaster.
It's not furniture, and I think a lot of people will feel the same, but I get weepy-eyed about my old computers? I still have my laptop from 1998, which does not work anymore, has less capacity then even the lowest grade flash memory stick, and yet I cannot part with it. So...that's something?
I have a rocking chair/glider that I bought when my oldest was born 15 years ago. I rocked all 3 of them in that chair. It's in everyone's baby pictures.
She is now taller than me by about 5 inches, but all I have to do is LOOK at that chair and I instantly remember her babyhood.
I have a few small side tables from my grandmother's house and one very strange mirror that I love simply because they were in her house. Nothing too remarkable, but I'm sadly not settled enough in my own house. I think I have those days of attachment ahead.
But I am obsessive about orange and seriously, that is the best couch I've ever seen. I totally understand your feelings for it, milestone moments on it aside. Beautiful.
I have a fainting sofa that I just moved from my mom's house into Autumn's nursery at our house. When my grandmother was suffering from cancer she slept on that couch to try and help make her comfortable and it is nice to just be able to curl up on it and feel like I'm close to her again. Sorry if it sounds creepy, lol, but she died at the age of 54 and didn't get to be a part of any of those "important" life milestones like graduation, my wedding, having a baby, etc.
Oh man, you know that red chair in our living room? Here's a picture of you sitting in it to jog your memory: http://www.flickr.com/photos/19288206@N00/2305907461/in/set-72157604028864694/
Anyway, we call it Red Chair (no definite article, not THE Red Chair or anything) and Sean haaaaaates it and I loooooooove it. I got it for $35 at a thrift store in Charleston because my mum said it looked like something that would be on the cover of Metropolitan Home.
Anyway, the reason I think Sean hates Red Chair is not so much because of the rip in the vinyl that I always promised to patch up and never did (so that you can see the stuffing coming out of it at the front), but more because when we were moving out of our apartment in Charleston, I sat in Red Chair in the street and watched while Sean and several of our manlier friends carried our furniture down all the millions of stairs. I mean, SOMEONE had to guard the U-Haul, right? It had all our stuff in it! So Red Chair and I did the honors. And now Sean hates Red Chair, but I have some good memories of our time together, sitting out on our wide tree-lined street on a humid Charleston evening in June.
I love Red Chair! I'm always a little miffed when someone gets to it before I do.
My bum went flat after the first baby and then rebounded after the second. Also, I got boobs which I've only been praying for since I was around 11.
I'm with the first commenter, I've gotten sad over computers. Computers and shoes.
Oh! I also got sadly sentimental about a tiny black and white TV I loved (I rescued it from the trash) that my husband hated. I still miss it. I named it Harold.
I might give someone a pony if they'd irrevocably destroy the blue couches in the basement. Those need to die.
I love my couch because it was my first adult purchase for my own place that wasn't cheap or crappy. Also I'm a designer and have a thing for chairs, I have an Eames plastic rocker coming my way in a few more weeks and I can't wait! It will be my new love and I will give it a name. My only wish is that I could have one of each amazing mid century modern chair but alas that would mean a 6000sf house, so I might stick with Vitra miniatures which are 1:6 scale versions of them.
I LOVE that couch! And I think it is absolutely normal to grow attached to furniture. I still have my TOYBOX. It lives upstairs in our loft and holds extra bedding.
His legs are so long! Do you stretch him every night?
Topic? I do love our sofa. It's a brown leather loveseat and we spent twice as much as we needed to on a sofa (though it was technically a wedding present so it didn't matter so much) because every time we went to browse the store we would head straight for it, sit down, and sigh.
Oh my gosh, he's like a little BOY now. Mine just turned two and I'm still blown away that she gets cooler and cooler every day. Where the hell does the time go?
Your long-leggedy boy is just gorgeous
I suspect I'll feel a bit nostalgic when we get rid of our hand-me-down couch and loveseat, but they'll be so raggedy and beat-down that salvage won't be an option.
No you're not the only one. When I was old enough to have my own room, my Mum moved her old dressing table into it. It's a low table with two levels. There's a draw in the middle and two small cupboards on either side. The mirror is huge (in my memory, in reality it's big but not HUGE. I wasn't really old enough to think much about it. Time passed and I got my own, brand spanking new, bedroom set. Including a new dressing table. In fact, that one is in my childhood room to this day.
A few years ago, when I moved into my own house, I asked my Mum about that dressing table. It had always been in the back of my mind. It's elegant style would look perfect in my new 'grown up' bedroom. Fortunately she still has it. And then then story came out. That dresser belonged to her biological mother, and was handed to her, the eldest of her father's daughters, by her new step-mother. I never knew my mother's parents, they died long before I was born. Suddenly, having that piece of furniture in my room was a tangible connection to a grandmother I never knew.
I loved every single thing about this post, well, except the flat butt thing, that made me whimper.
Great piece of writing, thanks. Would you clarify the first section in additional detail please?
Can I quote you in my report for school?
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