I have had the sofa in my office for 24 years. It’s just a nice comfortable old regular sofa to sit on. About a year ago I noticed the “leather” was getting stiff (not real, just a high quality synthetic, which is what I could afford when I started this practice). Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a way to deal with the stiffness that had resulted from age. Even Google couldn’t help. This month both a puncture and a cut suddenly appeared on the sofa. I was not surprised by this turn of events; That’s the kind of thing that happens when material becomes stiff and brittle – easily damaged by normal wear and tear.
So I went shopping for a new sofa, this time made of real leather. I found one that I think is perfect, which means it’s Italian and it will take three and a half months to get here.
One of the first things the nice man who sold me the sofa told me was how important it is to condition the leather regularly, at least twice a year. He also told me that it’s easy to keep leather clean when it’s conditioned regularly. (I ordered a nice dove gray color.)
Lottie and Joe had been married for 22 years. It had been a stable and profitable relationship. They had built a house and a family and had supported both. Three children, a series of dogs, cats, and gerbils, three job changes each, the aging of all four parents, and the loss of a sibling had taken a toll on their marriage and their energy. Keeping up with all those diverse and changing demands had left them little time or thought to nurture their relationship. The relationship had been strong enough to continue to overcome all challenges and stressors, and they had counted on it to do just that.
Having sent their last child off to college, they were experiencing an unusually quiet and undemanding time in their lives. They were hoping to relax and drink mint juleps on the terrace, or something like that. Instead, they often found themselves going in separate directions and experiencing a lot of irritability with each other. He had taken up birding on the East Coast; she had begun studying Italian at community college. She had suddenly started teasing him for leaving her socks lying around. She went on to criticize her choice of her television show.
One day, while driving home from college, Lottie suddenly thought, “Why bother going home? There’s nothing there.” The thought of her disturbed her deeply. She had never considered Joe or his marriage “nothing.” She had always casually assumed that she and Joe would be together forever, enjoying the fruits of all their years of hard work together. She drove to her house and went out to sit in the garden to think. It was her favorite place of hers, surrounded by the flower beds that she had so lovingly created over the years.
As she sat and thought about her marriage, her gaze drifted to the patio furniture. She had loved that piece of furniture at first sight. She at first she had taken care of him so well. She had cleaned and treated the cushions every season; she had put the cushions away carefully when she wasn’t using them. She had touched up every nick and scratch in the paint on the frames to prevent rust. She could now see that the cushions were discolored, two were torn, and two more were frayed at the seams. And there was rust on the table legs and all the chairs.
That was his Aha! moment: the recognition that marriages, like furniture, require attention and care; And that has to happen on a regular basis. If not, the furniture or marriage, since it is taken for granted, becomes vulnerable to damage from the normal wear and tear of life.
She could replace the patio furniture, but she felt a renewed awareness of the value of her marriage, something she did NOT want to replace.
Perhaps Joe would like to accompany her to her Italian class, something she hadn’t considered; Or maybe she would like to bird watch. Tonight she would start by making sure they had dinner together, something they hadn’t done in weeks. She went inside to find the takeout menu for her favorite pizzeria.