A Seat of One’s Own

One of my favorite annual reads is a book by Alice Taylor, An Irish Country Christmas, a collection of stories about the author’s childhood holiday memories.  Set in rural Ireland in the late 1940s, the book is a treat that I enjoy every December.

In one of the stories, Taylor writes of cleaning the kitchen in preparation for the coming celebrations, including a washing down of the chairs at the kitchen table. The chairs are an assortment, some with woven rope seats, and she notes that each chair “receives one differently.”

That phrase always comes to mind when I find a seat in the chairs of our Middle School common space.  That utilitarian room, sunk halfway downstairs, serves as a general meeting place for our students.  There are chairs and bleachers: students sit in both places.  The chairs have blue plastic seats and they’ve been in the hall as long as I can remember.  I’ve been here since 2002, so that’s rather a long time for plastic chairs and they look it.

Some are wobbly; others are slightly lower thanks to years of being tipped on their back two metal legs.  Every once in a while a student (always a boy!) is sitting on one of the chairs when it finally gives up the struggle and cracks or slowly collapses.  We rescue the falling student, set aside the wonky chair, and find him a new seat.  I never look to sit in one that I don’t think of how each of them “receives one differently.”  And then I smile.  And choose wisely.