Where do you sit?

Where you choose to sit frames what you see.

Frames what you think, and appreciate.

Where you sit paints a picture.

I recently had a chair recovered. It is an old chair that belonged to my mother. I decided to give it a fresh coat of paint. When I got it back to the cottage, I placed it in the southeast corner of the living room. I wanted to look at it. You see, I usually sit facing south looking out the windows at the lake. At the loons, herons, and osprey frolicking on the water. At reflections on the water as the sun rises and sets. And, the morning mist slowly lifting to reveal the shoreline across the way. I have never sat in the southeast corner facing inside. No-one has. There has never been a chair in the corner. Why would there be? No-one wants to look inward.

Well, I placed the chair in the corner and sat there with my coffee this morning. And what did I see? A messy bookshelf and hutch. It’s not that I haven’t seen them before. I walk past them every day. Use them every day. It’s just that I have never sat and looked at them before. Never considered what they looked like. Never considered if they could be arranged differently. What I realized is that they collected things. Things I didn’t need. Things I didn’t use. Things that I didn’t need to look at.

So, I decided to rearrange them. Clean them up. Discard things. Things I didn’t need. And, store things I don’t use often. And, display art pertinent to the cottage. Well, it’s really not art. A photograph I took of Chas during his very first build 35 years ago. A poem written by my mother in 1988 about what the cottage meant to her. A poem written by me in 2008 about what the cottage meant to me. A photograph that I took of an apple superimposed (in the darkroom) over a pair of hiking boots. Apples and hiking books were the focal point of my life at one time but that is a whole other story. And, books read and DVD’s watched while at the cottage some of which date back to 1978. No. Longer than that. There is a Betty Croker’s Picture Cook Book my grandmother gave to my mother in 1958. That would be about the time the cottage was built and was likely a cottage warming gift.

Now, when I sit in the corner with my morning coffee, I reminisce about all of the good times shared at the cottage over not one, but 4 generations.

You see, where you sit paints a picture. Structures what you think. And, is a reflection of you.

Where do you sit?