Reading Chairs

Reading chairs are important.  Almost the first thing my daughter did in her new home was to set up a reading corner with a comfortable chair.  For those of who love to read, a reading corner, complete with reading chair, is a sanctuary in the midst of the bustle of life.  An escape, perhaps, but one right in the middle of where we are supposed to be and therefore, connection rather than isolation.

I've had many such chairs in my life.  As a teen I used to drape myself over the arms of the wing-back chair in the living room.  In college, I had my spot in the stacks, not comfortable but at least cozy. When my husband and I first had kids, a leather recliner was the reading chair, with the children balance on our laps at first, then later, on the arms when they got too big to sit, both of them at the same time, in the seat with us.

These days it's either the settee on the porch or one of the many rockers distributed about the house, my favorite perhaps being the platform one that reminds me of my grandmother's reading chair.  I can still see her by the dining room window, lit by morning sun, her white hair luminous as she read whatever devotional material was her fare that day.  She was a hard woman, formed of a hard life, but in those small moments, or when she was teaching me to cook, bake, can or make preserves, she was a gentle and refreshing as a morning breeze and I knew that in her way she loved me dearly.

But the first chair, that might be the best. It sets the pattern for all the rest of the chairs.

My two brothers are much older than I; I came a child late in life to parents who were not expecting me.  From my perspective, it was like having three fathers and both my brothers gave intensely personal gifts to me, each in his own way.  The older one dropped out of his senior year to care for me when our mother was bedridden with tuberculosis, of his own accord.

The reading chair was a gift from the younger of the two.  He saved his lunch money to by a child's rocker for me, so that I'd have someplace to sit and rock and be safe and disappear into the books I was learning to read.  That little chair started out red and went through a legion of colors over the years.  It still sits in my office, laden with picture books, waiting for a grandchild, the only piece of furniture that I have from the family home.

I wouldn't trade it for all the world.