There is a particular chair with a matching ottoman that caught my eye in a catalogue featuring quirky unique designs created exclusively for those endowed with fat wallets, my wallet unfortunately suffers from anorexia. That the catalogue was sent to my address was of itself quirky but even still, to savor its pages of hand painted truffles intermingled with fun out of the ordinary upholstered pieces, well it was a coffee sipping few moments of sheer wishful thinking bliss.
I could use the same several thousand dollars required for that one purchase to instead furnish my entire house, not with nearly as much pleasure but certainly acceptably, if in fact I had a few thousand dollars to fluff up my skinny wallet and spend, on anything. The real point of a catalogue from an arm chair shoppers point of view is to wish anyway, this catalogue inspired lofty wishes.
The seed planted, when I came across a chair (that I really wasn't even looking very hard for) of equivalent shape, with an ottoman, there was nothing to squelch my inspiration and deter my thoughts from going in the "I can make a chair cover to mimic the one in the catalogue that I loved" direction! Plus it had a removable pink cover already, which is what made me take the second look in the first place. I could have a chair that I really loved without the exorbitant expense and it would be a better fit for my home because the cover could be removed for laundering. This place we call home is a well used space, no hoity toity stuff allowed! I made the purchase.
Then began the search for several fabrics that would offer the same look while holding up to the daily use our home is subject to and the occasional washings that would inevitably be necessary. Even after finding what seemed would work out marvelously, it still took months to get motivated to undertake the somewhat demanding task.
I would need several days in a row off from my job so I could devote uninterrupted time to the project once started. I really dislike stopping for trivial things like going to bed so I can get up in the morning and get through the day at work without being exhausted, just because I didn't get myself to bed at a decent hour, a predicament I am not a stranger to!
Finally the stars aligned and the chair was completed. This is MY chair, if I'm not in it it's OK for someone else to be, however if someone else is when I want to be, it may be suggested that someone else vacate and perch else-where!
The chair occupies a spot in the living room facing the picture window that just happens to perfectly frame the live oak tree across the street in the neighbors front yard. From my position in the chair I have been observing that tree for years.
The tree used to share yard space with 2 other live oak trees, no longer there. Since their removal the lone tree has been allowed indulgence to spread and stretch and reach to it's content unobstructed and unhindered.
I have sat in my chair watching out the window as it endured a severe thrashing from heavy winds and wondered if it was possible to come through the storm undamaged.
I have seen it glow, illuminated by the suns last light finally able to shine past the clouds after a day of rain and thought, wow that tree is beautiful, it's branches form a perfectly symmetrical orb of fluttering green atop its srong straight trunk.
I was shaken in my chair when lightening struck through its branches to the ground just a couple feet from its base, I saw the charred earth and hole the strike left as evidence.
I have watched birds fly in and back out and engage in bird folly all around it.
I have conversed briefly on the way to the mailbox with the kid who climbed and blended invisibly into it.
My chair has provided me with a good spot to watch the tree as it had no choice but to endure ruthless peltings in cold driving rain, and from my chair I have smiled as I watched that tree wriggle and writhe in a sun shower and mellow breeze as if it were a laughing child running on tiptoe under a sprinkler on a hot summer day. I could sense it's glee! It was dancing like no one was watching, literally a tree of glee!
I have sat in the chair staring out the window at the tree, thinking I've lost my color, all is gray, I want my color back, and while I was stuck in that dark place the tree just was. The tree actually consoled me, comforted me, just by being. I thought if that tree could stand all that it does and just be, if it could be strong under every circumstance, if it could as only a tree, obviously thoroughly absorb the warm and wonderful along with the woeful and wild, how much more should I as a capable human being with a fully functioning brain be able to shake off my funk?! The tree has been an audibly silent but visually loud therapist as I've watched it through my window, reclined not on a couch but in my chair with feet propped up on its matching ottoman.
Maybe I'm easily amused. Maybe I'm just able to easily imagine the finger of God as He thoughtfully joyfully traces out the size and shape of each tree in hopes that someone like me will take notice, and by noticing the tree, be inspired to look beyond the creation to the creator. It's really He who fixes my funks. Sometimes He uses something like a chair facing a window that perfectly frames a tree.
No comments:
Post a Comment