If Our Furniture Could Talk...

 If you want to know me, listen to my furniture. When Joe and I moved into our Maine house, we immediately felt the absence of a big chair with a soft cushion and a comfortable couch. At first we thought we could get by with the random furniture that we were able to purchase from the seller's estate, but moving-in is exhausting, and recovery calls for serious couch time! We bought a total of nine wooden chairs from the previous owner, but not a single one had a cushion soft enough for napping while watching reruns of "Scandal" and "Nashville," so we went to Country Farms Furniture in downtown Bath, and Joe fell into a Sam Moore Chair, and I fell into a Sam Moore couch. It was love at first sitting: a tangerine couch with two cushions and a light grey chair imprinted with big fuchsia and orange circles. As soon as we placed that new couch and chair in the family room, the house on Washington Street began to feel like home. On that summer day, a new family had moved into Bath, and along with my grandmother's rocker, my mother's lamp, and my Secret Life of Bees dishes from Anthropologie, came our personal history.

Given a voice, I believe our furniture could tell a compelling story about our lives. Even in silence, tables, chairs and dressers manage to reveal a good piece of our souls, and I don't think I'm alone in imagining furniture that talks. From Fantasia to Mary Poppins and on to Beauty and the Beast, Walt Disney breathed life into inanimate objects like buckets and spoons, dresser drawers, teapots and candlesticks. When the teapot in Beauty and the Beast sings "Be Our Guest" with Angela Lansbury's maternal voice in chorus with the castle's enchanted staff, I can feel the Prince's need for love! Without it, the castle is just a building, not a home. In a similar way, I can feel magic when Mary Poppins arrives to straighten up Jane and Michael Banks' room. Listening to Mary's commanding song,"A Spoon Full of Sugar," dresser drawers open and close; a small table is set, the toy box is filled, and the looking glass, just in time, echos one high note after another. The furniture at the Banks' house helps to narrate the joys and sorrows of a family in crisis. Of course, Disney is not the only creative thinker to use household items to reflect our stories. C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe shared a similar vision by using the wardrobe to suggest our dreams and fantasies. British author Lynne Reid Banks (no relation to Jane and Michael) created The Indian in the Cupboard, and by means of an antique cupboard he brought us back to 1761 and the Iroquois nation, which proves that sometimes antiques do serve as time machines! In the fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears, furniture frames the narrative: three beds and three chairs; in Vincent Van Gogh's paintings of two chairs, we glimpse the souls of two tormented artists: Van Gogh and his friend, Paul Gauguin. Both in art and in life, furniture can reveal our personalities long after we leave the room! 

In early April, BBC Radio 3 ran a week-long series by novelist Ian Sansom called "The Essay: Furniture: A Personal History of Movable Objects." I didn't listen to the series on the radio; I read a summary in The BBC News Magazine. Okay, true confession, Joe found the article online, printed it, and left it on the kitchen table where all important papers are placed for morning review! Joe knows me so well! He knows that furniture matters to me because I am convinced it not only shapes our living space, it reveals our heart and soul. In the words of Ian Sansom: "All furniture communicates meaning ... A bed speaks of our inner lives ... Our cupboards and cabinets imply secrets. Wardrobes suggest our dreams of other worlds. And tables invite company." Joe and I obviously agree with Sansom because we purchased three round tables from the seller of our Maine house in order to be ready to entertain our summer guests as soon as possible. Whether it's in the kitchen, dining room or sun-room, we simply love to gather around the table with family and friends to discuss the world as we know it and to imagine all the ways we would like to change it! Of course, before you can engage in a round table discussion, you have to invite people to sit at your table. In Maine, Joe and I hope to welcome lots of people, and for that specific reason there is an old, half table in the entry with a glass vase, usually filled with flowers, and my Aunt Estelle's candy dish, ideally filled with chocolate. This antique table was there before we arrived; it greeted us so warmly that we decided to stay! And we asked to purchase the table with the house! Some things just go together: a coke and a smile; a table and a hallway!

A few weeks after moving into our house on Washington Street, Joe and I made one more significant purchase. On a rainy day we drove north to Wiscasset and stopped at the Avalon Antique Market. It seemed like the Maine thing to do! Within minutes of entering the store, I spied a walnut dresser with four drawers, and it called my name. On closer inspection, Joe found a metal tag on the back with the etching B. Altman & Company. As a native New Yorker, I recognized the name as a synonym for high society. (B. Altman was a gentile New York City department store that enjoyed a long and stellar run from 1865 to 1989 before it was forced to close because of hard times.) On that same rainy day on Bath Road, we also found an antique mirror, circa 1815, with two small drawers and a delicate shell inlay, and since the mirror complimented the dresser beautifully, we decided to buy both pieces for the master bedroom. With the dresser and mirror in place, the bedroom began to look more like us. If dressing mirrors could speak, I suspect they would have Disney tales to tell, and more than a few Olivia Pope scandals to whisper! Just imagine!

 Wherever our life's journey takes us, we are all looking for a good place to sit; a place to drink sweet tea in the summer and hot chocolate in the winter; a place with a soft cushion.  If only our furniture could talk, it would tell you how happy Joe and I are to be at home on Washington Street!