There’s this little wooden chair in my garage.
And recently.
About a week ago.
It silently helped me to think about my life.
Look.
About a week ago I did something I’d never done before.
Whilst in my garage, I reached down to where this little wooden chair stood.
Slid my open-palmed hand, palm-up, between it’s two front legs.
(Oo-err!)
And I raised the little wooden chair, slowly, to eye level.
Then.
Head tilted right.
I just looked at it.
Go Slow.
I can do this kind of thing when I’m in my garage.
Go slow, I mean.
Because being in my garage is not like being a brand consultant.
Or a holiday studio owner.
My garage makes no urgent demands on me, you see.
My garage is just there.
Housing tools.
Protecting lots of two-by-four softwood from the rain.
And in one dark corner.
Providing a home for a little wooden chair.
Jealousy.
The longer I looked at this little wooden chair.
The more jealous of it I became.
Because I am 54 years old.
And he is probably about the same age.
(I decided ‘it’ was ‘he’ quite spontaneously for some reason).
And even though we are, in many ways, as equally scarred, faded and tired.
He has something I do not.
And it makes me jealous.
Death.
Seconds before I die.
I will finally realise that everything I ever had was temporary.
When I moved from ‘renting’ to ‘buying’.
I thought I’d moved from ‘temporary’ to ‘permanent’.
But I hadn’t.
I’d moved from ‘temporary’ to ‘temporary’.
Because unlike this little wooden chair in my hand.
This thing of which I am so very jealous.
I will die.
And this simple little wooden chair will not.
Quiet.
It’s really quiet as I stand there in my garage.
Balancing a little wooden chair on my open palm.
It’s silent.
And out of this silence a second thought popped into my head.
A thought that made me feel more jealousy and more love for this little chair.
Both at the same time.
Because I realised that not was this little chair going to live forever.
It had something else I did not.
Something just as valuable.
This chair knew something about itself.
That I did not know about myself.
And might never know.
This little wooden chair knew what it was for.
The Little Wooden Chair.
There’s this little wooden chair in my garage.
And recently.
About a week ago.
It silently helped me to think about my life.
