Rocking Chairs

When I was little (back in my Wisconsin days), we had a recliner/rocking chair....a tattered old thing with a revolting pattern of hollowed out circles sporting different shades of mucky brown splashed across a wide strip of the seat and the back. Despite its distasteful appearance (nothing in our house was exactly tasteful, per se), my mom and I always always seemed to gravitate towards that chair in the evenings. I'm not sure whether she intended for me to plant myself on top of her every time she sat down, but that's what I did...almost every night, it seems. We would rock back and forth until both of us were out cold. Most nights, we didn't even bother to get up and go to bed...we would stay piled up in that chair until morning.

Today, several years later, I have discovered that a lot of the time, sitting in a rocking chair is the only thing that can calm me down when I'm having an ultra-stressed meltdown. Throughout the school year, I would find myself making my way to the porch of Joins so I could claim one of the many rocking chairs that sits outside and faces the rest of campus. The longer I sit, the more relaxed I become, and I swear I can feel stress and worry just leaking out of me as long as I'm still rocking.

This memory of the broken down recliner was the first thing that passed through my head during my still half-asleep state this morning. Sounds silly, but maybe it was a way of reminding myself what I need to do to calm myself down during the coming months of stress. Despite my best intentions, taking a deep breath, counting to ten, or even praying for peace, doesn't always do the trick. Sometimes I simply need a physical manifestation of the calm. So I'm thinking...maybe I should invest when I get to the last of my furniture shopping for the new apartment. :)