The Old Kitchen Chair

The old kitchen chair was of the unstable variety. I’m sure you’ve sat on one yourself. First the creaking of every joint and the unsettling wobble that makes you think the chair had too much to drink and you’re along for the ride. Then there is the slight, ever so gentle testing to see if it will be your neck or just your pride when this chair goes to pieces.

Do you remember your last voyage on an unstable old chair? Did it affect your ability to trust chairs for a while?

Trust

You see, trust is supposed to be built into the chair. It shows up as a solid, comfortable feeling as you settle your unseen side deep into the inviting lap of the chair. Its trustworthiness leaves you calm, relaxed, comfortable, and ready for action.

• In the office, this means ready to write, answer the phone, work on projects.
• In the living room, it may mean deep conversation or enjoying the movie about to start.
• In front of the fire, it may mean traveling with your imagination as you read the book on your lap.
• In the kitchen, it means ready to tickle your taste buds and share stimulating thoughts with loved ones.

But on “the old kitchen chair,” it meant, “Can I get up and out before it explodes into pieces leaving me to sprawl on the floor like a newborn giraffe? And that is a different kind of trust.

A chair you cannot trust is like:

• a neighbor you find minding your business
• pushing the gas peddle and staying where you are
• artichokes without mayonnaise
• or peanut butter without the jelly

Cotton mouth, difficult to speak, while inside everything is tense and hollering for someone to help before you choke on the panic in your throat.

That was my experience a few months back as I sat with friends on the old kitchen chair.

I’m happy to say I made it up and out before playing out my version of the newborn giraffe. And the chair met its due prison sentence into the workshop waiting its turn for a remodel.

The Old Chair Makeover

This weekend became the weekend of the old chair makeover. If you’re an old kitchen chair, this may be a painful proposition. Rubber mallet, drill, counter sink, wood chisel, glue, and pipe clamps. The tools of an old chair makeover.

Some of the joints were clearly bad. They were the first to be pulled, pushed, twisted, and encouraged with the mallet to let go of any grip they had on each other. Ever so slowly the legs and cross pieces lined up on the table waiting their turn.

Drilling out the dowel that snapped, sanding and scraping crusted old glue, changing from nails to screws for the braces. Each joint was examined and prepared for the reunion. And as the joints slowly came together, the old chair began to sculpt itself and take shape again. Broken dowels gave way to sturdy, solid dowels, and old crusted glue became new stickiness that had strength and steel grip again.

When the chair had finished its sculpting and sat on the floor waiting for someone to trust it, I was first in line. I sat reverently on the old chair and felt the familiar trust that was again built into its fibers. Solid, sturdy, comfortable, not even a hint of a wobble, no fear of playing out the newborn giraffe sprawl.

And when it rejoined the rest the old kitchen chairs, I realized that it now was the stable one. Now all the other chairs looked up to it as the most trustworthy, the strongest degree of integrity. Now they all longed to be like it.

What started as the unstable type of Old Kitchen Chair has become the old chair with the most integrity, the most looked up to, the strongest of the bunch.

And Sunday evening as I headed off to bed, I paused a moment by the kitchen table, pulled out the old kitchen chair and sat down, just to feel what trust really felt like again.

Conclusion

For me the lesson was clear, discovering a point of personal instability is an opportunity to rebuild my integrity and become stronger, more trustworthy, the leader I want to be.

And that is why when I grow up I want to be an old kitchen chair.