by Kate Glasch

Created on: May 12, 2009

The Purple Chair Beneath the Window

The purple chair, not the purple chair that I saw at Target one time and which I really wanted to get, but I mean the purple chair beneath the window. Whenever I see a purple chair, I will think of my favorite purple chair beneath the window.

I remember that chair. I love that chair. It's not even my chair and it's not even the only purple chair. It sat in a row of three other identical purple chairs, but only one was the chair that I claimed. Early mornings I would retrieve my cinnamon raisin bagel from the school cafeteria and satisfy my morning hungers in that cushioned purple chair beneath the window. If I dropped some cream cheese on the chair, oops, I hoped no one saw it! It was okayI was the only one that sat in that chair anyway. Ha!

Early mornings after my cinnamon raisin bagel, I would sit in that purple chair and I would read. I would read anything from Sparks to Stowe, from Harris to Lee. Wait, wait, wait, don't talk to me! Atticus is in the courtroom! Pages passed when I sat in that chair beneath the window.

I did many things in that chair; homework, playing guitar, reading, eating, but the thing I enjoyed the most was waiting for that boy to walk down the steps opposite of that purple chair. Everyday I would anticipate his decent down those stairs. He always took each stair so quickly. As time passed, we got more and more comfortable talking right beside that purple chair.

While at school, my time outside of sitting at a school desk was mostly devoted to that purple chair. In that chair, I shared cheese and Ritz crackers with friends. In that chair, I learned how to tickle the strings on my guitar in such a way that Girl from Ipanema resonated against the window behind me. I held back tears when I finished a sad book in that chair. I made decisions about Prom in that chair and I watched people pass by in that chair.

Whenever I return to that school, I always sit in that purple chair beneath the window, the chair which I named my own. Although I may not be eating a cinnamon raisin bagel, or playing guitar, or reading a book that endlessly draws me in, or waiting for that boy to descend the stairs, I will still be sitting in that purple chair, not the purple chair that I saw at Target one time and which I really wanted to get, but the purple chair beneath the window. My purple chair beneath the window.

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