furniture as stability.

i got a bed when i turned fifteen.

my parents said something like, we're getting you a bed for you birthday. and i said, um, okay.

and that was that.

i remember going to pick it out. it was a cool, autumn morning in houston. and there in the eddie bauer home store (sadly,  no longer in existence) was the four-postered thing of beauty. light wood. simple. elegant and rustic all at once. and it was love.

i believe in love at first sight. because that's how it was with me and that bed.

i would dive into it at night--towering off the ground it demanded a running start. i'd lie right-smack-dab in the middle and admire the gentle curve of the foot-board, the sturdy posts reaching upwards all around me.

in the morning i'd carefully make the bed, place my head down on the freshly-smoothed covers, whisper sweet-nothings, and assure it of my imminent return that evening. and off to school i'd reluctantly go.

for me that bed is now a talisman of sorts. or rather a symbol--a goal. that four-postered sleeping wonderland is nothing less than stability made tangible.

you see, it is large. not easily schlepped from one nyc apartment to another. and because of it's size it will cost a pretty penny to get it here. or there. or wherever i end up. in short, care of my bed will require funds and continuity of location. and oh i long for funds and continuity of location!

but for now the bed remains. at the most constant home i have. 2,000 miles away.

and now i am twenty-five. and now ten years have passed. and the furniture gods have gifted me once again. i have a reading chair. for my twenty-fifth birthday i was given a reading chair.

i asked for it last christmas, but it was only upon my return from utah this summer that my mother pulled out the ballard designs catalogue, suggested a model, and then lugged me off to the fabric store in search of neutral fabric with a punch.

the days following utah were difficult. and so in some ways i think the chair was more my parent's peace-offerening to my mental health and happiness (the sultan of all the many forms of stability) than actual birthday gift. but what a lovely peace-offereing it was. because as of today, i have the chair. but in early september i had those few afternoons spent with my mother in the comfort of a heavily air-conditioned fabric store quietly perusing spool after spool after spool.