The Couch

The couch that sheltered me was originally plaid. Green and burgundy and navy blue. It was there for the first Halloween when I wore a silk toga. It was there on Mondays when we gorged on Doritos and Jack Bauer. It supported my best friend the night she passed out on the stairs and kept me alive when my lungs gave out. I came back to that couch when I played my first hooker; my only hooker to be exact. They came back after softball games, lock –ins, missions. I learned to make the family sized macaroni and cheese on that couch – if you make the regular size those boys eat it all and you don’t get any. Our band came back to that couch. Our friends grew babies in their bellies on that couch. Gorged on Cheetos, spent Super Bowls on that couch. I watched The Torpedoes rise to fame from that couch. It was a safe place for us all and then the couch moved.


Still plaid and still safe, it took up residence in a new room. I saw it less but loved it more. It flooded us with old memories, helped create new ones. It made me smile. My first night in Richmond, I feel asleep on that couch; too many $13 Martini’s found in a Richmond magazine. We laughed when the cat curled up in the foot rest. It was her shelter too, I suppose. We laughed ‘til we cried over “lean pockets” and comics on that couch. I listened to the noise of the cars going down the great avenue and knew: in this place, at this time, on this couch, I was home.

The couch moved again. Several times in fact. It saw us through loves found, loves lost, puppies adopted. Moves to new places, new jobs, horrible jobs, weddings, vacations – life. People came and people went and it eventually settled on Strawberry. It supported us when we discovered Guitar Hero. We sang “Carry on my wayward child, they’ll be peace when you are done..” The couch loved everyone. It wore thin and stretched out, got smelly and still, new roommates, the cats, the dogs, the Olive Garden troops and their bands came to sit on it. To love. To rest there.

It moved again and, as so often happens, everything began to change. The couch was reaching its end in the dark country room. We gathered, instead, on cold bar chairs round tables of beer. We married, we moved, we drove and we flew. We graduated and left. We tried and came back. The couch as it was could no longer be found. But the shelter it gives is always around, spirited to another. It’s morphed and it’s changed and its knowledge has grown. Its cushions are still worn but its heart twice as big – our circle is larger. The couch that shelters me now is beige. When my eyes fill with tears, it cradles me with soft blankets and lets me rest. It gives us strength. It offers respite. When we’ve played too many Quarters and had too much to drink. When the pizza is gone, we’ve laughed ourselves tired and emptied into each other; the couch stands resolute, open arms, a soft place to land.

The couch will change again. That’s one thing I know for certain. Maybe it will be leather, maybe it will be white. It will grow old, filled with love. It will hold children someday; hopefully some will be mine. It will shelter aging bodies, receding-grey hair, new pets and a stock pile of memories. Dreams. I dream that it will always be there. The plaid couch of our beginnings. And I, for one, will always run to it. Our safe place. Our shelter. My home.