Lolo Gorio'S Chair

Come And Sit A Spell

This series is an invitation for you to sit a spell - to stop, rest your feet, and visit for a while. 

All you have to do is write the truest sentence that you know. - Hemingway

Today, we're taking the diagnostics essay writing test to determine our proficiency in Freshman English composition.

I had known it was coming so I prepared for it by keeping current on local and world events and reading sample essays on academic topics and learning issues. I was sure the topic, which was to be announced the day-of, would be one along these lines.

I was ready.

Poised with my brand-new Bic ballpoint pen and college ruled paper, I waited to see the topic that the instructor was writing on the chalkboard. At first I couldn't make out what it was. It seemed but a short word. 

Then she turned around and said, You have the rest of the hour to write.

CHAIR.

What??!!

Seriously?

I was perplexed. Surprised. Lost in thought. What intelligent and impressively interesting things in 300-500 words or so could one possibly say about a chair?

The cane and rattan weaving of the set in our living room? The rough planks of the dining room benches? I knew they each had four legs and a seat and they looked like they were fluent in 'furniture.' But really?

For heaven's sake, What? Which? How?

In my mind, I scanned images of anything chair that I could possibly write about. Okay, there was Lolo Gorio's oversized rattan rocking chair, the wrought-iron children's chairs, the makeshift bamboo seats in the garden...

Hmmm... let me back up. I may have found my writing muse.

How about that rocking chair?

It was my grandfather's.

Large.

Unoccupied, for he had long been gone.

I remember standing on tiptoe, reaching up to its tattered corner and climbing up on it. Ensconced within, I felt so small and insubstantial, as if some melancholy breeze could just blow me away.

Sitting there, I began to think of my grandfather. 

My memories were nothing more than cloudy dreams from his faded photograph on top of the piano, for I never knew him. I had often wished I could see him just once in the flesh. He had grown so mysterious to me that he took the place of someone like the Holy Ghost, one that was never seen but whose presence was felt. 

I began to imagine that his embrace like everything else about him, including his rocking chair, would be massive. 

I would picture squeezing by him in the tumba-tumba as he told stories about the farm and the poultry house. I'd look at his craggy face that looked like a crumpled road map, each line a rough road taken or a detour that went somewhere.

I'd envision how it would be to lie down with my stomach on the floor as I listened to his jokes. And visualize him rocking the chair in rhythmic cadence as he laughed at his own joke. Old men must be the same everywhere. They laughed harder than anyone else in the room at their own jokes.

Sitting alone in his chair, perhaps he would pull his chin when perplexed or deep in thought.

So that was what I wrote.

It didn't overwhelm with big words and complex thoughts.

It was a celebration of the everyday, the often overlooked, and the ordinary. 

I can sit on that thought.

Happy simple.

Happy more heart.