I own seventeen chairs. Six live at the art collective which I founded and manage. One sits at the apex of the bookcase and antique trunk which form a 45-degee angle in my tiny bedroom. Four face each other on my porch. Three stand in the sitting room under the dropped loft in which I sleep. I sit on one at my cherry live-edge table, writing; I dine here, too; and I drink coffee, watch videos, and sometimes, just stare at the curtain.
The mate of the chair in which I currently sit stays folded and slid between the wall of an under-stair cubby and a three-drawer dresser which holds half of my clothes. That cubby wall forms the right-hand side of a nook in which a small chair straddles a little bench. I pull them both out to dress and tie my shoes.
In addition to these chairs, I own two stools with folding steps, a large bench that once lived in a pizza parlor, and a cedar chest equipped with a seat cushion. I have two metal chairs: One at the shop cash stand and one that I once used in the shop but which migrated to my garden across from a small bench painted bright blue. Finally, near the store entrance I keep a small wooden bench that we affectionately call “the spouse seat”, where the tired half of any shopping couple can pause to regroup while their enthusiastic other half browses our five galleries.
I am one person. I can, between my home and the store at which I spend three of seven days each week, seat twenty-six people without anyone feel crowded. In my home itself, eighteen souls could gather and balance plates on their laps while making small talk.
Once in a while, the pig farmers Tim Anderson and Michelle Bert ride their electric bikes down the levee road to knock on my door. Ms. Bert takes the blue rocking chair while Tim settles into the gold easy chair which he traded me for an antique platform rocker that Michelle has in her stilt house down the way. Now that summer has settled on our island, we can instead face each other from the blue porch chairs, though i suspect that Mr. Anderson will prefer the pizza parlor bench.
My NZ friend Moira sat on the loft steps the other day to cut veggies, but then we went outside and ate our salads in the sweet air of the Delta evening. Yesterday, the other Michelle came to haul away a janky table, and we, too, found ourselves settling for a chat beneath the summer sky. Once in a while someone else wanders by: Tracy, with her friend Regina; the inimitable Tom; a dog-walking neighbor.
But most often, I sit alone, with a book, a glass of cold water, and seven decades of memories. I call my sister or my son. I work a puzzle, drink a mug of coffee, or tilt my gaze upward into the overhead trees, straining my eyes to search for the woodpecker that raps at the bark morning, noon, and night.
Mostly, I just sit. Sitting comes more easily when you have enough chairs. Sometimes, I face the levee road and watch the cars and trucks pass. Occasionally I turn the other way, gazing at the meadow and watching the humming birds flit through the vines on the trellis. When the pale pink of the setting sun has faded from the horizon, I go inside, settle into Tim’s chair because I know he will not mind, and open my Emily Dickinson. If I’m feeling homesick, I pull one of my Kansas City poets from the little table where they all live. As the light fades, the empty chairs slowly fill with ghosts. In their quiet company, I sometimes fall asleep, wrapped in a shawl that my friend Paula gave me for my birthday one magical year, long ago.
Mugwumpishly tendered,
Corinne Corley
The Missouri Mugwump®
