I’ll bet that when you’re counting your blessings, rocking gently as you meditate on all that you have to be thankful for, you’re probably leaving out your seat!
Rockin’ Mark Twain
I’m convinced there’s nothing a good rocking chair CAN’T do. But let’s focus on the positive here, shall we? Your favorite rocker can:
– be the calm place where you nurse hungry babes and soothe crying children.
– mend your troubled heart or broken body. What gas bill? What doctor visit? What ear infection? What brave new world? I’m 10,000 miles away; how ’bout you?
– be a safe harbor for those who’ve come full circle. A two-year study at a Rochester, NY, nursing home found that rocking chairs ease the anxiety and depression of dementia patients. All the pharmaceuticals in the world can’t replace good old-fashioned comfort.
– lull you into easy meditation or prayer. When you need to NOT think, but it’s too early for sleep and too late to call up a friend for some silliness (“Carol, can you come out to play?”), your old rocker is suddenly an even more perfect fit.
– be the place where you move … but go nowhere. A place that’ll let you go to-and-fro with your thoughts and dreams but keep you firmly planted.
– be a great story-telling post. That subtle back-and-forth combined with the warm glow of a yarn about to be spun is the stuff of childhood memories.
– connect you to your legacy. Who owned this chair before you? Who will have it next? What memories will your family attach to it?
So when recounting all that’s way cool, don’t leave out your favorite seat! A good rocker, like a member of the family, will always have your back.
Do you have a much-loved rocking chair? If not, consider making your own.
Or the next time you travel, plan a route through the Charlotte, NC airport. Its main concourse is full of white, high-backed rocking chairs!
Sure do! And it’s all those things you mention! Bought it when I was in labor with my baby, sitting in it at our small town auction while my hubby was running around the Festival we were at doing his weekly newspaper duties! When they at last got to the rocker, the auctioneer apologized for making me get up to auction it off, said he needed $25.00 for it minimum. Knowing I didn’t have a rocker for that baby trying to get out, I bid on it and no one wanted to bid against me! Still rock in it today, but boy the horse hair sticking out of the fabric sure does itch! Thanks for the memory!
Ever since I was a little girl, when I get really upset I go sit in my grandfather’s wooden rocking chair. I never knew him as he died when I was a baby, but the comfort I feel from just sitting in that chair is something I can’t put into words.