It’s becoming clear to me that it’s time for a new couch.
The synthetic leather is wearing away and one of the cushions lost most of its stitching years ago already.
We bought this couch new in 2012 and it has served us well. This couch and its matching love seat have held us for naps and Netflix, conversations and cuddles and countless hours of cross-stitching. Our couch has been my home office where I drink coffee, have zoom meetings and write sermons and blog posts. For the last six years, our dog has also claimed a cushion where she can sit close (but not too close!), curling up like a donut, resting her head on her tail.
The couches in my life have had, on average, a 12 year life span. My first couch (brown, yellow, and white plaid) had been around for a while when I arrived in 1977. I broke it in for my siblings. When we moved in the mid-1980s, we got a flowered couch – just as good for napping and softer on the skin. In my college years, I came home to a couch that looked like it had been painted with pastel and grey brush strokes. The unattached cushions could be easily tossed about and repositioned to allow for optimal coziness.
The first couch of my married life was a hand-me-down covered in white velour. We held all three of our children as babies on this couch.
When we moved to Kingston in 2012, the white couch was relegated to the basement and we bought our current brown faux-leather couch for the living room.
As I thought about the life span of the couches of decades past, I considered that this upcoming couch might be the second to last couch of my life. I just turned 48, and if I live to be the age my mom was when she died (70), I’ve got about two couches left.
I never thought about measuring my life in couches, until I did. I’m not sure why I find this measurement so satisfying and compelling. Perhaps it’s because it invites me to think about life in longer arcs—longer than the 24 hour news cycle. Longer than the next four years of the new administration.
Perhaps this means of measurement draws me in because remembering couches is a new window through which to think back on the moments of my life.
It’s an archeological exercise of sorts. James K.A. Smith opens his most recent book, How to Inhabit Time, with the story of an invitation from his counselor: “Draw me a map of your childhood house,” his counselor said. And so he did, winding his way through the garage, down the stairs, and into the basement. “In the rec room, near the bar and the hi-fi with its 8-tracks, is the blue flowered couch where our parents told us it was over and that we—my mother, brother, and I—would be leaving” (2).
The map of Smith’s childhood home was a window into his exploration of the seasons of his life, just like the couch-calendar was for me. Each couch, a season.
- the warm and safe season tucked into the plaid couch
- the tumultuous adolescent years on the flowered couch
- the coming-and-going decade of leaving the pastel-cushioned nest
- the soft and sleepy years on the white cloud of a sofa
- the bold and strong brown-couch season of raising our own kids into their teens.
Smith writes, “Whether in my own spiritual life or, say, the lifelong journey of a marriage, recognizing the reality of seasons can be incredibly liberating, not only because it changes our expectations but also because it attunes us to receive God’s grace in different ways in different eras of a life” (7-8).
I am thankful for Smith’s book (as I find myself turning and returning to it around this time of year) and for his invitation to us to fully inhabit our time. When I reflected on the couches with my sister, Tracy, she said, “Oh yeah, I have that with coats. At one point, I wondered if my Patagonia jacket would be my last.” Tracy is doing so well in her brain cancer journey, that she now has hopes for many more coats. Thanks be to God.
We do well to wonder these things… not in a morbid or fatalistic way, but in the way of memento tempori – keeping time before our eyes, numbering our days aright (see Smith, 12-13).
A life lived ‘under the sun’ should expect birth and death, mourning and dancing, war and peace the same way we expect spring and fall, summer and winter. There is a predictability, even inevitability, to such times. An existential equilibrium can be found for the one who is not surprised by the arrival of such times and seasons. If we can cultivate a sense of expectation, we won’t be unmoored by a season of weeping; we won’t expect perpetual dancing; we could even be primed to ask ourselves, ‘Is this my time to die?’ and thus receive even that season with a graced equanimity. (125)
Maybe I love measuring my life in couches because my mom’s final couch was her “happy place.” It was where we last hugged each other. It was where she asked us, “Is it time? Am I going to heaven?”
And finally – after a season of waiting, it was time. She left the warmth of her last couch and we tucked her into her death bed. She had fully inhabited her life of seven (or so) couches, and now she inhabits the unmeasurable time of her eternal rest. Thanks be to God.
25 Responses
Thank you for this wonderful piece of writing. I remember my Mom still sitting in her glider. I think about her every time I sit in that glider.
YES! The sitting places are so holy…
Yes, the sitting spaces are holy. And so are the precious moments shared by the people sitting in them. My parents are in their 90’s and I have learned that the unrushed, relaxed conversations are what is most needed and most blessed. Time given with no expectation. Just time together. Thank you for your beautiful blog and photos.
Oh, I love leisurely couch conversations. With my mom, we always had coffee.
This is so touching. And the pictures are heartwarming, especially the last one of you and your mother. It gives me hope to think of time in longer arcs, in couches. Thank you!
Thanks, Mark. May your years and couches be arcs of love.
I’m not that old, but I’m not that young anymore either. Born in 62 and now 62. These days I often think in “last of” and “second last of” terms but not usually with furniture. Moreso with things like shingled roofs, furnances, hot water heaters and cars. Reminders of mortality are not a bad thing and hopefully cause us to also appreciate the present more fully, and, as you reminded us, also the past.
I love the double 62-ness of your years, Phil. Thanks for engaging.
You’re making me feel very frugal this morning. Our current couch has been with us for 23 years and is still going strong, although we are planning to have some stuffing added to the seats. I’m more of Traci’s ilk, some of the items hanging in my closet have been with me for 25+ years and I’m still wearing and enjoying them. Ultimately, everything around us, including ourselves, is temporary, except the love of our God. Your piece will make me view my couch with different eyes. Thank you.
Haha, yes. I knew there would be some who would comment with mention of much heartier couches (or stronger frugality!). Sometimes the seasons of couches are connected to how often one moves as well… I also keep and wear clothes for decades. 🙂 And yes, thanks for engaging and noting that which is temporary and that which is eternal…
I loved this post. Thank you! It reminded me of the seasons of
my own life and of an old brown and white plaid hide-a-bed couch that my husband Roy (your seminary choir director) brought into our marriage. Personally I tend to measure my life in the dogs we parent. Our Sadie is 9. I hope to parent at least one more dog! We love our pets, but they have their seasons of life that typically last about as long as your couches. We grieve their passing and then we move on to a new season. Such is life.
Oh, seasons of dogs. My heart is with you in this… Today is the anniversary of the day – back in 1991 – that my family adopted our dog, Lady. And tomorrow is the 6 year anniversary of the adoption of Nevada. So, I’m particularly mindful of the seasons of dog-love right now! May Sadie bring you a few more good years and may you be blessed with one another well-loved canine!
Heidi,
Thank you. That’s the first word. Thanks
Second, you are so Midwest. It’s a sofa. I jest. It was a couch for me too, until it wasn’t at some point.
Third, I have the book “4,000 weeks: Time Management for Mortals” on my to read list. It’s not a typical “time management” book in that it’s about our limitations and the somewhat absurdity of “to do lists” and our inability to manage or control time in any substantive way, at least that’s what I think it’s about. I’m sure there’s more. The book came to mind because it shortens life like the number of “couches” we have without making it feel “dark.”
So, at 49 and not looking to replace my current “couch” any time soon, I might be on my second to last sofa already. Or I have about 1,400 weeks to go. Not sure which number makes more sense, but I’m hoping to fill the weeks or the seats with good life, relationships, work, and grace. Here’s to the couches/sofas!
Love this, Rodney! Couches… sofas… davenports… chesterfields… All the names for things and their connections to areas of the continent! (Though many will argue that each of those words has a very particular meaning.) That book sounds like a great companion to Smith’s How to Inhabit Time. Or Dorothy Bass’s Receiving the Day. Blessings on your weeks and seats!
After reading 4000 weeks, which is the average lifespan in weeks, every week becomes more precious along life’s journey. A must read! Don’t wait another week to read it on your favourite couch!
So good. Thank you.
It reminded me of Jon Meacham’s, The Soul of America, and the seasons we have been through, and made it through. And God willing, will again.
By God’s grace, yes and amen.
Heidi, thanks for that lovely post. Our family room has an old L shaped couch that’s been reupholstered once in its lifetime. I treasure in my mind’s eye an old photo of my mum and dad, on a visit to Grand Rapids, both napping on the two sides of that couch, heads together in the middle.
Oh! What a beautiful picture, Judith. I wish everyone could upload their favourite couch/people photos in the comments!
What a gorgeous reflection, Heidi! So much richer and deeper than measuring our lives by our automobiles.
Vehicles can be holy places of sitting, too! But yes, I do love the couch-measure.
Heidi, thank you for this — all of it, including the images. I understand why RJ articles are often accompanied by stock photos, but your personal images offer a deep grounding that makes your writing even more authentic than it would have been without them. After all the words and all the images, I can’t think of a more fitting partner to your closing words than the image of you and your mother in final embrace on the couch.
As to your sister’s measuring life in coats, there may be an opportunity there for a playful, if unexpected, encounter with Plato. In his dialogue _Phaedo_, Socrates, on the day that will end with his execution, talks with a group of friends all day about the reasons for his hope that death will not be the end of him — even as he tries hard to turn his friends’ attention away from their worry for him and toward their own ongoing call to touch immortality in this life by loving wisdom. One of the images they play with in their long conversation is of a person who possesses a series of coats throughout his life, but whose last coat outlasts him.
Aron! First of all, thank you for this Plato-reference! it fits so perfectly on multiple levels. I will make sure my sister sees your comment. 🙂
And you are welcome for the personal images. I enjoyed weaving my words and memories together for this post and am thankful for their resonance with you!
Loved this. Thank you.
You’re welcome, Cathy. Thanks for reading and loving!