Couch Hunting

When setting up a life, a comfortable couch is a necessity. I will not compromise on this. The couch is where most things happen – eating, writing, reading, resting, thinking and any other activity that I may have forgotten.

My friends observe me with exceptional understanding week after week as I deliberate on couches. I suppose a month is enough for one’s patience to start waning for one of them did ask, "Does it have to be this difficult?"

"It isn’t difficult," I replied. I hadn’t thought much about their perspective on these deliberations of mine though I myself was beginning to become a bit frustrated by the fourth week with this fruitless search. More so, it was the feeling of being unsettled. But I hold my ground for I am after all an artist and the one quality and one skill that we develop after years of creative work is patience and persistence.

"It just has to be something I love," I told my friends. "If I don’t love it enough, it makes no economic sense. Minimalist living people, minimalist living. We get the necessary and ensure that it’s good and something that will last for a reasonable time."

"Sharda," said one friend’s husband, indicating my shelves, "You are by no stretch of the imagination minimalist. You have more books than your apartment can hold!"

“True,” I replied, thoughtfully, (I hadn’t really thought this through) "But on the converse, I don’t have a lot of other crap, like ornaments and shoes and all that nonsense that people have."

He rolled his eyes.

As if the universe had conspired to alert me to this excess living, a few days before that, my niece had phoned me (boxes of books are stored at their home as well) and launched into the point of her call without an opening greeting of any sort.

"Do you realise," she began, "that, of all your earthly possessions you have more books than anything else in your life? I mean, you don’t even have that much clothes, but you have books! I just thought that you should know that."

“Yes I am aware of that. Thanks for that observation,” I replied.

"Yeah well maybe it’s time that you write your own and stop reading other people’s," she stated in the dry, matter-of-fact way that makes me laugh.

I have been writing in various locations this week. Since the physical and mental transitions that have taken place, movement seems to be the order of the days – movement between physical and mental spaces. Today as I write about this couch search, I think of it as an exercise in movement. It takes my mind back to Virginia Woolf’s essay Street Haunting, that I had read over twelve years ago. I revisit it this week. I try to figure out exactly what this couch search means in the greater scheme of things. Why this search for meaning anyway? Why are we always so preoccupied with the whys? There are some whys I am reminded by my therapist, for which there is no answer. It just is.

Mindful living invites us to observe without judgement. So, I observe, as I try to flesh out myself in this movement. The couch search I tell myself is perhaps one of those things which just is. But no, it isn’t. It is more profound than that. In past years this exercise would not have been a major priority. This time it is. And I suppose in a sense, the couch is a representation of a life in transition. It is also a rebellion, my claim to space. It is, therefore, also a transformative space.

I turn my thoughts to our national state of affairs as usual. The couch figures here too. A mere piece of furniture, but essential to belonging, to community. The couch, as a space of grounding, transformation and transition, houses ideas of home, of community, of love, of family, of friendships. Most of all, it is about authenticity, my authentic self. So, I do not apologise for this dedicated search for my perfect couch. My mental well-being is tied to it.

In this small two-seater island, I wonder whether we recognise our power as a community. This couch is old and outdated now for many of us. But, are we willing to search for one that suits our needs? Or shall we just continue to rock back on the one that we already have and think, "This is all that I can afford." What does your perfect couch look like?