{"id":696,"date":"2020-10-15T23:43:38","date_gmt":"2020-10-15T23:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/?p=696"},"modified":"2020-10-15T23:43:38","modified_gmt":"2020-10-15T23:43:38","slug":"story-of-the-month-seated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/?p=696","title":{"rendered":"Story of the Month: Seated"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From high school on, I had always wanted a rattan fan-backed chair, and in 1972, in the first year of my first marriage, I finally got one.\u00a0 <\/span>My husband, a fledgling sculptor then, had struck a deal with the owner of The Door Store, a hip furniture retailer in the Georgetown section of Washington, D. C.: a statue in exchange for two chairs.\u00a0 <\/span>We each chose one.\u00a0 <\/span>My decision was swift.\u00a0 <\/span>My chair was from India, made of tan rattan with decorative geometric details woven throughout in black rattan.\u00a0 <\/span>It had an hourglass-shaped base and a large, fantail back.\u00a0 <\/span>It was the only one in the store, relegated to a far back corner, incongruous among the crowd of streamlined modern chairs of teak and molded plastic and curved, padded silhouettes.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure where the longing for that chair originated.\u00a0 <\/span>The furniture in my childhood home was basically colonial.\u00a0 <\/span>The homes of my parents\u2019 friends were Danish modern.\u00a0 <\/span>A fan-backed chair was featured in the 1960\u2019s television show \u201cThe Addams Family,\u201d as a throne-like seat for Morticia, but I\u2019d never watched that show.\u00a0 <\/span>Scanning the Internet, one can find any number of movie stars and celebrities posed in fan chairs — Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Trader Vic, Brigitte Bardot, Huey Newton, Truman Capote, Al Green, Dolly Parton, Marlene Dietrich on John Wayne\u2019s lap.\u00a0 <\/span>Perhaps photographers liked the way the chair\u2019s high, rounded back framed their subjects\u2019 heads.\u00a0 <\/span>But at the time I longed for and obtained my chair, I was unaware of these pictures.<\/p>\n

Wondering about it now, I think my mysterious longing was tied to other, less specific longings.\u00a0 <\/span>I think, for me, the chair symbolized the romance of faraway places — lush tropical islands, or hot African caf\u00e9s like Rick\u2019s in Casablanca,<\/i> or the shadowed verandas of steamy South American coffee plantations.\u00a0 <\/span>It attested to my belief that some day, somehow, I\u2019d get to places like that.\u00a0 <\/span>Some of that romance seemed to rub off on people when they sat in the chair.\u00a0 <\/span>Invariably, they sat up straighter, draped their arms languidly over the chair\u2019s arms, remarked that they felt like kings or queens.\u00a0 <\/span>A friend who drove our belongings across the country from Philadelphia when we moved to Los Angeles sent us a photo of himself seated in the chair on a rocky ledge with the Grand Canyon as magnificent backdrop.\u00a0 <\/span>He\u2019d had to partially unload the truck in order to wrestle the chair out for that photo.<\/p>\n

By the time of that move, I was with a new man, not the husband who\u2019d procured the magical chair, and we had a young son.\u00a0 <\/span>The chair had lived with me in three different houses and one apartment.\u00a0 <\/span>Its style never fit with any of my other furniture, even though my tastes were eclectic.\u00a0 <\/span>But it didn\u2019t need to fit.\u00a0 <\/span>It was its own environment.\u00a0 <\/span>It tended to dominate small rooms.\u00a0 <\/span>It was more comfortable than it looked, certainly cooler in the summer than leather or upholstery.\u00a0 <\/span>And even as it grew a bit shabby over time (its inaccessible scrolls collected dust), it remained resonant of something beyond itself.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Later, when cheaper, less elaborate versions, commercially dubbed the \u201cpeacock chair,\u201d were plentiful in stores, I sometimes wanted to say, \u201cYou know, I got this chair before they could be had easily and in a climate where it didn\u2019t belong and in a personal, unorthodox way.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>But I didn\u2019t say it.\u00a0 <\/span>I could imagine no other response to such a declaration than \u201cSo what?\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, my chair is considered \u201cretro\u201d or even antique.\u00a0 <\/span>I have read that such chairs invaded Britain from India in Victorian times and became popular in the United States in the early twentieth century, enjoying a brief revival of popularity in the 1960\u2019s and 70\u2019s.\u00a0 <\/span>Much to my surprise, on-line sellers of \u201cauthentic\u201d peacock chairs repeatedly state that \u201cno 1970\u2019s room or hotel would have been complete without one.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>I moved among hippies and other counter-cultural types in the 1970\u2019s, yet I never saw a peacock chair anywhere we frequented, and I never thought of my owning one as part of a fad or trend.\u00a0 <\/span>Quite the contrary, I thought I was being unique, even bold.\u00a0 <\/span>Perhaps this small vanity was part of my continued attachment to the chair, a statement as I drifted into more traditional roles that I was still a rebel of sorts. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Strangely, I can\u2019t remember where the chair finally went.\u00a0 <\/span>It never resided in my present home, where we\u2019ve been since 1987, though it was in the house before this one.\u00a0 <\/span>So I must have shed it in that move.\u00a0 <\/span>I guess I had outgrown it.\u00a0 <\/span>Did I give it to someone?\u00a0 <\/span>Who?\u00a0 <\/span>I can\u2019t imagine I sent it to Goodwill.\u00a0 <\/span>My husband doesn\u2019t remember, either.\u00a0 <\/span>But then, it wasn\u2019t \u201chis\u201d chair, trailing youthful aspirations and nascent self-definitions, serene in its own identity and dignity no matter who was sitting in it. \u00a0 <\/span>Perhaps it is serene and dignified still, ensconced in someone\u2019s living room somewhere, or preening on some hopeful someone\u2019s e-bay page.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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