My Love Story

 

It is not a mutual love affair. It is not a reciprocal love affair. It requires nothing; asks for nothing. This is a one way love affair. MY husband doesn’t resent it, even though it has been going on for more years than I can remember. It cushions and supports me through my many mood swings. It doesn’t sit and wait for me or my attention. My love is my maroon paisley bedroom club chair.

It is a common club chair; two arms, loose back foam cushion, loose foam seat cushions . It wasn’t always a maroon ptaisesly chair. It was purchased as a dark yellow club chair to fit in with the decor in your original apartment; a humble garden apartment in Forest Hills, Queens. Its usefulness and admiration began there because that was the chair I sat in to breast feed my first born. When we moved to our own house in Kew Gardens Hills, the club chair was replaced by 2 French Provincial blue toile living room chairs and the club chair found itself in my master bedroom. The yellow fabric was covered with a maroon paisley slipcover. My brother, an upholsterer made the beautiful skirted slipcover 60 years ago. The chair has seen better days; it’s actually quite shabby. I’ve made sleeves to cover the faded arm rests.

During the pandemic, when my Zooming to writing classes started, I began to spend many hours relaxing or napping in that bedroom maroon paisley club chair. Its importance and value began with a specific topic, better known in creative writing as a prompt from the teacher or leader. and so did my love, appreciation, admiration and adulation of my bedroom chair. In this chair, with my eyes closed, my ideas, imaginations, words, sentences, paragraphs danced around in my mind. My next story, poem or essay was born. My creative writing eggs were hatched.

In the dark area under the chair, three shoe boxes rest, gathering dust. One contains my entire olio collection of photos, from my childhood to today. The other contains two of my diaries from my adolescence. The third houses important or interesting letters I have received. Sitting in my chair, inspiration for many a written piece filtered up from these shoeboxes.

With my eyes closed, a warm hand crocheted blanket covering my body, my head cushioned in the indentation of the back foam cushion, I allow my stories to unfold,. Most importantly, I need to remind myself to always have a pencil and paper nearby before my ideas, thoughts, words, sentences and paragraphs float off into the nether the way most nighttime dreams do.

Ethyl H.