A Photograph of the Chair
In the corner of the living room is her reading chair.
Picture a man named Lawrence, 74, whose wife Edna died two winters ago. In the corner of the living room is her reading chair. It is a deep green armchair with a worn spot on the left arm, where her hand rested for thirty years while she turned pages.
Lawrence has decided to spend most of the year in a city in Spain, close to his sister. The apartment he found has a small sitting room, and a chair that size would fill it.
For two months he did not touch the chair. Friends offered ideas. His son Will, who lives in another state, said, "Dad, do what feels right. I'll back you." Lawrence did not know what felt right.
A neighbor mentioned a young father named Wes, 31, who had just moved in down the street with a newborn and a living room that held only a couch. Wes said he would love a chair to sit in at three in the morning.
On a Saturday, Wes and a friend came for the chair. Before they lifted it, Lawrence asked for one more minute and sat down in it. The light from the window fell across his knees the way it used to fall across Edna's. He put his hand on the worn spot. He could not stand up. Wes waited without saying anything, holding the baby's blanket.
After a while Lawrence stood. He said, "Could you give me ten minutes?" He found his phone and took a photograph of the chair by the window, in that light, with the worn spot showing. Then he took one more, of the empty room.
He told Wes one thing about the chair. Edna had finished hundreds of books in it, and she had read the last page of each one aloud to him.
The thing and the feeling
| The thing | The feeling it holds | Where the feeling goes |
|---|---|---|
| The green chair | Edna reading in the afternoon light | A photograph, printed and framed |
| The worn spot on the arm | Her hand, turning pages | Lawrence's own memory of it, and now a story |
| The empty corner | The day the chair left | A second photograph, taken that morning |
Lawrence took the framed photograph to Spain. He hung it where the morning sun reaches. Three months later Wes sent him a picture of the baby asleep on his shoulder in the green chair. Lawrence put that photograph on the shelf below the first one.
You could…
- Photograph the thing in the light where you remember it most clearly.
- Take one photograph of the place after it is empty.
- Tell the next person one story about it.
- Print the photograph and put it where you can see it each day.
Which object in your home has a person's habits worn into it? Share it in the comments below. A reader sitting in a worn chair right now could smile at yours.
Tell us in the comments