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Papasan Chair

This morning I woke up fine. I showered and did all my boring morning crap. Including starting laundry. And for some reason, as the my to do list got lighter, the rest of me felt heavier. Heavier and sadder and sadder. Inexplicably sad.

Some mornings are just like that though. They come with a heaviness of immobility. A desire to just sit there. Inside the sadness. Let it engulf you and let the tears come.

But then I got up and saw a picture of a friend's baby in our papasan chair. And I thought of all the places that papasan has lived. I got it free from a boss I had when I moved into my first apartment. Something like 10 years ago. When we first got it, we had no cushion for it. So as we unpacked, it collected newspaper and tissues and other crap and that's what we sat on. Until a friend gave us a real cushion. Which years later got pretty much destroyed by a cat I had. And then it had no cushion again. Until we got one with a gift certificate when Rob and I got married.

As a minor, I used to pass out drunk and sleeping with my nearly 18 year old kitty in that chair. He's since died and 2 successive kitties have claimed it, no matter what we were using for a cushion at the time. I've taken pictures of at least 3 kiddos sleeping curled up with our grown up kitty in that chair. And I've watched the kids take the chair apart and put the basket on the floor and spin each other in it. Or make a line-up game of summer saulting onto the floor from the chair.

Its a papasan chair so it occasionally has been known to drop a person or two on the floor. Usually when they least expected it. Its like the ejection seat roundy rolly poley thing that drops you off when you were just being lulled into comfort. I've watched several grown folks fall get their yolks dropped on the floor. Funny every time. I mean peals-of-laughter-from-everyone kinda funny. Wholesome, full-belly laugh funny. Cheeks hurting, tears in the corners of your eyes funny. Funny that helps have your friends and family and friends' babies and families' babies all write themselves into the crumpled-up newspaper of a crappy chair funny.

I'm thankful for the things in my house that make me think of all the folks I've loved that have trouped through my house for meals and drinks and games and work and plans and tears and hopes and dreams and successes and failures. I'm thankful for my 12 year old, very used papasan chair. Happy Thanksgiving.

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