[ the chair ]

sooooooo... i live in a really pretty rural part of new jersey & my journey, everyday, used to take me on a little road, past a small field that has a chair in the middle of it. it's a wooden chair & is there all year long. sometimes it isn't visible because the grass grows so tall around it.

there is something really comforting about it being there. i've taken photos & seen lots of others doing the same.

one year it fell apart, but i was really relieved to see that it had been replaced by another. then when that one broke another... & another.

so as i drove past i'd start to wonder the significance... maybe it was a symbol for the crop to do well, or to ward off evil spirits... or maybe it was there in memory of someone, that was the idea i like the most... maybe the owner put it out there to remember his dead father who loved the field & maybe the dead father came to have a sit on it sometimes.

i'd craft all these stories for it's meaning & obviously other people must be getting something from it too.

i thought to myself if i see anyone coming out of the house nearby, or in the field i'm going to stop & ask. but there was never anyone there until.... the other day.

my husband, mike, the boys & i were driving along & i'd just finished saying that i wanted to find out when there was movement at the end of the long driveway.

we'd already gone past but mike being the kind of guy he is had already begun to turn around without me needing to ask. he knows what i'm like when i have something in my head.

i felt a bit silly as we drove up the long gravelly driveway & decided to walk the last bit. so i hop out & go up to an elderly lady, introduce myself, she was very gracious & quite lovely about the whole thing. when i finally got to the question so i was wondering what it meant... i felt kind of excited that i was about to find out! she replied it doesn't mean anything....

i couldn't believe it... or rather i didn't want to believe it... she told me her husband came home from a yard sale with this chair & she asked him what are you going to do with that! it looked odd in their sitting room so he put it in the field... & that's it!

unbelievably, though, most of them have to be replaced because people come along & smash them up...

so i walk away feeling disappointed & annoyed with myself... i should have just left it alone... is it better to know or live in the wonderland? but what if the truth was far better that anything you could imagine... i suppose thats the risk we take & have to live with.