my couch.

I slept on my living room couch last night, unusual for me when my roommate is actually in town. The convenience of owning a sectional makes improvised bedding very simple: drag the portions into shape and slip into unconsciousness. It’s a testament to my warm-bloodedness that all I needed was a tiny throw blanket (and the clothes I was wearing); the heat shut off sometime around 2am (which I only know because I briefly woke up to my nose being cold) and I was too lazy to get up and walk one step to turn the thermostat back up.

My sofa has been in my family for the better part of 32 years (minus a stretch of time when it was owned by my then-married friends Greg and Riikka), originally purchased in Chicago by my maternal grandparents shortly before I born. Grandma and Pop-Pop took the thing with them for two moves—to Portland, Maine and then to Portland, Oregon—before finally parting with it when they moved from their house into their waterfront condo. Greg transported it in parts to his and Riikka’s apartment in the black Chevy Metro that replaced the white Geo he was driving when I met him; I think I visited them twice while they owned it. The couch came back into my ownership when Greg and Riikka took jobs on the Scholar Ship. By that time, I had my own apartment and was in need of a couch, and I considered it perfect timing. While I was homeless, I stored the couch (and everything else that couldn’t fit in my car) in a storage unit just across the river from downtown Portland. I was very excited to move into my current apartment, if for no other reason than I could actually bring my couch out of storage and use it. Owing to a logjam of other furniture, the sofa’s sections are split apart, only occasionally reuniting whenever I need something that can accommodate the length of my body.

I tend to hold onto things as a matter of principle, but I hope to keep this couch in the family for at least another ten years. It’s one of those things that just makes me feel comfortable. It’s consistent, I suppose, tied to memories of being a little kid using it to support my wobbly legs, of playing with sparklers in the humid Maine summer, of that 19-year-old redhead I took home with me when I was twenty-four, of my friends who my roommate and I have offered shelter to if they were traveling. It’s seen me as a happy baby and kid, as a confused teenager and as a miserable adult and, Giving Tree-style, it’s always been there for me, never ostentatiously calling attention to itself—just being.