Nicola vs Chair: Part Two

Just before we moved I started restoring an old platform rocker. You might have read about it. If not, here's the link.

I did not complete this job before we moved. The chair sat in the garage in the new house for almost another year before I got back to it. Another coat of paint.  Still a little pink bleeding though on one arm. Len installed the high quality seat made by our friends Bruce and Kelly. It fit like a glove and is rock solid. I bought upholstery fabric, didn't like it, sold it and bought something else. I ordered foam, made a cushion and reupholstered the back using a staple gun. Then added the trim. 

When it was all done,  I sat down. And I smiled. It is a comfortable chair.

But I won't say I was 100% satisfied. There were drips on the paint. There's still a pinky undertone. I did not paint the underside which is still rough and reddish brown. I did a pretty amateurish job on the upholstery. But it was serviceable. The biggest problem was that it felt like you were going to topple over backwards when you sat in it.

Our friends Glenn and Sheila came for a visit. We made sure they didn't sit in the chair. But Len did. As we were enjoying our cocktails on the veranda, there was a popping sound followed by a crash as Len went straight over backwards, narrowly avoiding punching a hole through the screen door. Somehow he managed to keep his drink aloft like a pro.

Closer investigation revealed that one of the springs had snapped. Back the chair went to the garage. New springs were ordered. In the meantime, I found almost the identical chair- in a much better state of repair- in Calgary for $90. We could have bought it, but we didn't. Stubbornly, I wanted to fix the chair. I needed to fix the chair. It had become a symbol to me. But a symbol of what?

The springs arrived, costing almost the same as a better version of the chair. And they weren't the same as the old springs.  Len discovered the old screws holding the springs to the chair did not match. And they were painted to the chair. With some mineral spirits and elbow grease, they were removed. After a few missteps, the new springs were attached- two per side, much less bendy than the originals and with six screws per side.  Much better than one loose rusty spring and two mismatched screws.

Looking more closely at the underside of the chair, we could see evidence of previous repairs. Blocks of plywood had been screwed in to hold the bits together. A couple dozen rusty old tacks had held down the two layers of upholstery. A mysterious wire seemed to be holding one leg in place although it seemed unnecessary. We left it where it was.

I continue to ponder what the chair means to me. I know it has something to do with preserving the past in a new place and something to do with creating a home.

In many countries people don't move far from where they were born. Their memories and their history surrounds them. Their sense of place and where they belong is set. For better or worse, their history is inescapable. In Canada though? Most of us have come from somewhere else.  We carry our history and geography inside us-invisible to the world- although the result may bleed through. The stories of our ancestors, their successes and joys, their tragedies and injustices- both endured and inflicted-are known only to them. Our sense of who we are and where we belong is something we make for ourselves. This fact of our existence may be freeing, but it's also sad. 

I imagine when the chair was new. I imagine a family bringing it to a pioneer home in the Peace Country. I think about the first person who sat on it, perhaps smiling as I did. I imagine the woman of the house standing back and admiring her new furniture with a sense of completion, maybe feeling that now, she had arrived.  

Since that first family owned the chair, generations of people have seen something in it worth preserving. With its mismatched screws and bits of plywood and mysterious wire, it has survived many transitions. It is part of the past yet it continues on into the future. Just as we humans move forward, carrying our past with its secrets and joys and broken bits held tenuously together. Knowing what we know, we try to be our best selves wherever we are.

My great-grandparents' farm near Brantford

Our Dawson Creek house

Our Slave Lake house

So here we are in our new home, in a town with dozens of temporary residents in fancy vacation homes. We are making friends in this place where every day is a holiday and who you are in another place and time doesn't count for much. What counts is who you are now and what you're going to do today. 

Winter came. We moved the chair from the veranda to the bedroom where our new grandson would sleep. The house-now fully furnished with bits and pieces cobbled together - is home. 

I am home.