This is a photo of my favorite chair. It has now been retired from the front room because the upholstery is eroded by time, faded by the sun and scarred by cats’ claws. I recall when you were last here, napping in the chair, saying it “wrapped you up, like a warm embrace.”
Some scorn the notion that a relationship, like an old overstuffed chair, might be comfortable. Not me. When I sit in this chair, tattered and worn as it is, I feel safe. I’ve launched a thousand journeys from this place, a good book in hand, feet propped on the ample ottoman.
No matter how many others have occupied this space, you came and owned it, curling up and making it your possession. Maybe ownership is the secret of being comfortable in a place.
If others insist my words are stale, my technique is tried, my heart has held a number of previous occupants, I can only answer guilty as charged. I’m 54 years old. I’d be a fool to say I’ve never been this way before.
Here’s the difference. Others have rented the space. You own it.
