From Where I Sit

By Pat Spilseth, Columnist

As the seasons change from summer to fall, late August is a time for reflection. Content and relaxed, I savor the quiet of early morning on the lake. I recall the chats I enjoyed with my husband and friends, watching grandkids playing on the water, neighborhood gatherings and thinking about and fall days when we get back on a daily schedule. What better time and place to reflect is there than sitting in my Adirondack chair on the deck gazing out at the lake.

I remember all the people no longer with us. I’m at that time of life when there’s more life behind me than ahead. Loss is a daily reminder of who and what I’m missing, but also a reminder of the joys the departed folks added to my life. I’m reminded of how important it is to enjoy life. Carol, Dick, Cousin Dennis and John Dan, Wanda, Bev…so many are gone today who added joy to my life.

Summer and fall reunions have produced new loves for several classmates and friends. Renewed happiness shows on their faces; they’ve found a life partner to curb the loneliness of empty days and nights. How nice it is to look across the table and see a smiling face at mealtime, to travel with, attend church and converse with. Life is lighter and more fun with a companion. It’s nice to not feel so alone anymore.

So many good memories come back to me as I sit in my comfy chair watching the waves lap the shore and fishermen quietly casting for the “big one.” It’s important to have a comfortable chair to kindle memories…

Chairs register with me. My weekly column is titled “From Where I Sit.” My first logo accompanying the column had a woman sitting in an Adirondack chair on the beach…that was supposed to be me, reading and writing. Often I’ve written about the two comfy, red leather chairs sitting by our fireplace, where my family usually reads and talks together by the fire. My writing friends have their own.

I expect soft comfort to encase my bottom when I sit in a chair. And I need a back to rest against. It’s an added bonus to have a footstool, a hassock, for my legs to be elevated. Adirondack chairs fill my need for the perfect summer seating on the deck, around the fire pit, on the lawn or down by the beach. They’re perfect to sit and dream, talk with a friend, meditate. They help create a relaxing mood for folks and invite conversation.

Poet Laureate Billy Collins writes poetry about chairs. Like me, he must have an affection for simple, comfortable chairs. I’ve been reading Collins’ collection of contemporary poetry entitled “Aimless Love.” In simple words and plain speech, Collins leads readers from one line rolling into the next, giving his readers imaginative surprises and pleasure. His poems are playful and delightful, sometimes serious. He writes in free verse…there’s not a rhyming couplet in this collection of easy to read poetry. His style reminds me of another poet laureate, Ted Kooser, from the Great Plains who writes poems about valentines, winter morning walks and life in rural and small-town America. His simple style using plain words is a delight to read.

Collins’ poem of chairs sitting on a porch is one of my favorites. It reminds me of today’s lack of communication between people, used to texting in abbreviated phrases rather than conversing face to face. The poem has me remembering the two white Adirondack chairs on our deck with a table between to hold coffee, books and treats.

“The Chairs That No One Sits In”

You see them on porches and on lawns

down by the lakeside,

usually arranged in pairs implying a couple.

who might sit there and look out

at the water or the big shade trees.

The trouble is you never see anyone

sitting in these forlorn chairs

though at one time it must have seemed

a good place to stop and do nothing for a while.

Sometimes there is a little table

between the chairs where no one

is resting a glass or placing a book facedown.

It may not be any of my business,

but let us suppose one day

that everyone who placed those vacant chairs

on a veranda or a dock sat down in them

if only for the sake of remembering

what it was they thought deserved

to be viewed from the two chairs,

side by side with a table in between.

The clouds are high and massive on that day.

The woman looks up from her book.

The man takes a sip of his drink.

Then there is only the sound of their looking.

the lapping of lake water, and a call of one bird

then another, cries of joy or warning–

it passes the time to wonder which.”

Adirondack chairs sit in pairs on our deck overlooking the lake. Most evenings in the spring, summer, and fall I like to relax in these chairs and talk over the day with my husband or another friend. Sometimes in the snowy winter, I leave these chairs on our screened porch so I can sit in them, bundled up in down coat and hat, with coffee and my journal. I enjoy the falling snow, cross country skiers on the lake and the ever-changing ice patterns frozen on the water.

The chairs have a way about them: they seem to elicit conversation, shared secrets and dreams. The chairs invite reflection and conversation.

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To contact Pat, email: pat.spilseth@gmail.com.