Moving in, moving on, sitting down.

We have been in the house 5 weeks now. Each week has had its drama, its humor, its aha! moment. The sofa and chair-and-a-half didn't come until this last Saturday. I wanted that set in particular because when Sara sits next to me in the chair, we fall into a natural embrace. It is a kind of three way hug, with the chair providing the geometry, directing the gravity, containing us and holding us the way no other furniture we looked at could. How odd, to buy furniture with an eye toward a kind of menage-a-trois. Actually, it is a menage a quatre with Maggie the cat dividing her time between our laps.

For the last few years, Sara and I have made an effort to get up at 5 or 5:30 to have time for coffee and quiet conversation before hitting the chaos of the day at work. Since the move it is an effort to get up much before 7, but Sara manages it and we get about 5 minutes at best to sit together.

The chair holds us together. Never thought of furniture in that way before. I never would have thought of the virtue of such a resource, but one of the side effects of getting the house and fixing it up is a blunt reminder that the sheer stress of the physical world can create difficult emotional side effects in a partnership. Overcoming those physical problems is a bonding experience, but little things help bridge the gap. Little things like a great overstuffed chair-and-a-half.