The Chaise

As I look ahead towards moving from southern Illinois, I'm taking stock f my possessions, of what I want to keep and what I will purge. Of all my belongings, there are relatively few that I adamantly hold on to. One of them - the biggest of all - is the chaise lounge. It's seen better days, to be sure - and at this point is in desperate need of re-upholstery - but it is one of my most valued possessions.

I can remember, as a child, visiting my grandmother's house and getting to spend the week sleeping on the chaise lounge in her living room. Perhaps part of the lure of sleeping there was not having to navigate the tremendously steep staircase that led to the guest bedrooms upstairs. Perhaps the lure was also in part to the fact that there was a television in that room - a television I could watch after everyone else was in bed. I can remember arguing that it was the most comfortable place in the house to sleep.

Years later, after my grandmother had passed away, I went up to check on the house - which my father and uncles were in the process of trying to sell furnished. While up there, I discovered that no one had laid claim to the chaise lounge - that it was to be included in the "furnishings." When I returned at the end of that weekend, it was with the chaise lounge in tow. I couldn't, after all, let it go with the house. It was the most comfortable place to sleep.

I let a friend borrow it for a couple of years, getting it back around the time I was pregnant with Alexandra, I think. The chaise then lived at my parents' house - staying there when I moved to Meriden and still there when I moved back in with my father after my mother's death. I can remember napping there during those exhausting first months of my pregnancy with Alex. After she was born, it was also my preferred resting place. The heat wave that hit Connecticut soon after she was born kept both of us in the living room at night, to avoid the stifling heat upstairs, her in a travel bassinet and me on the chaise lounge.

When we moved to Illinois, the chaise came with us. Often it has acted as the dumping spot for our bags and coats when we walked in the door. But whenever Alex or I have been sick or feeling out of sorts, the chaise has been cleared and we have gravitated towards it.

Last year, when we moved outside of Carbondale, I attempted to divide the large living room into sections - half of it with couches and television, a corner with books and a desk, and another, quieter, corner that was my idealized reading area. The chaise was placed in the last area, the quiet corner. After all, it was too far away from the television to be a good viewing seat. It was tucked away, comfy and cozy - a perfect reading spot.
There are no books near the chaise - but there is a Kylie curled up on it, with her laptop, while The Sound of Music plays on the television and Alex plays on the floor in front of her. Perhaps it's the autumn; perhaps it's the fact that I'm tired; perhaps I've finally come to the end of my rope with the morning sickness.

When I feel homesick, when I want to go back in time, I still curl up on the chaise. I may be an adult now - and it may not be the most comfortable place n the house to sleep. I may have to fight Alexandra for chaise time now. Still, the chaise is home - and I think that wherever it is, I will be home. There's just something comforting about it.