Grab a chair and sit a spell, let's visit

I believe that things happen for a reason. The universe may be chaotic and unorganized but I still believe that people and things come and go, in and out of our lives for some reason or another. Sometimes the reason is evident and other times you never get an answer for its entrance or exit. I’ve learned to just roll with it and be happy with whatever is occurring on a daily basis.

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Ten years ago I was wandering around a flea market. It was the middle of summer and the place was packed end to end with vendors selling antiques or homemade items.

I remember the chairs as if I had bought them yesterday. They were dark brown, unassumingly small chairs, it was the flower that caught my eye. They had flowers carved into the top rung of their ladder backs. The flower took these little chairs from bland to fabulous. I assumed that someone had carved those flowers in there to help the chairs have a little pizzazz.

I was not in any particular need for two chairs that day. Actually chairs were the last thing I needed. I felt drawn to them though and had no idea as to why.

I asked the man sitting on a stool how much he wanted for them. “Twenty-five dollars for both” he said. I happily paid him the money and took my beautiful new-old chairs out to my truck.

Once I got the chairs home I inspected them. They were at least fifty years old, maybe more. The seats were covered in a hideously ugly, shiny, orange fabric. I removed one of the seats because that orange had to go. After I got it unscrewed from the chair frame, I flipped it over and was surprised to see that the orange was on top of something else.

I carefully pulled away the old fabric and revealed a beautiful hand sewed flower motif on black fabric. It was the original seat cover and it was way better than the orange.

I sat there looking at the chairs, wondering what I was going to do with them. I thought about screwing them together and making a bench out of them. Lucky for them I’m not exactly craft-tastic. My beautiful little chairs sat in my house for many years. I moved three times in those years and I carried them myself every single time.

Those chairs spoke to me all those years earlier so they must need to be in my life for a reason.

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Two years ago I met only_a_dream online at a website where forum posting was the rage. Her and I were goofing around there one night and started emailing each other. I liked her immediately and we began building a friendship.

Six months later I was in St. Louis visiting one of my sisters. Dream graciously made the six hour car drive to come and meet me. Finally I could see the whole girl instead of just guessing what she was like.

She was almost exactly as I had imagined her to be. She is warm and friendly, open and witty. She is intelligent and just damn fun to be around. Her beauty is deep and real. I felt an instant connection to her, something that is almost indescribable. We had so much in common we could have been related, or should have been. I have three sisters and Dream felt exactly like one of them, five minutes after seeing her beautiful, smiling face.

We spent a few hours together, then it was time for her to go so we said our goodbyes. She was the high point of my St. Louis vacation and let me tell you it’s hard to top Clydesdales.
About a month later I flew to Chicago to stay at Dream’s house for a long weekend.

I couldn’t wait to see her again. She’s just the kind of person that you want to spend time with. Her energy is amazing. Her essence is soft and light, easy to enjoy. She is also hilariously funny all the time.

She met me at O’Hare airport at 8 a.m. What a good sport she was to get up so early to come and fetch me. We embraced and I told her how wonderful it was to see her again. We got into her car and she whisked me back to her house so I could freshen up and rest a bit.

Never once since the first time I had spoken to Dream until now did I ever wonder what brought her into my life. Friends are a thing that you don’t question. Friends just are. Friends just happen.

Once we got to her house she lugged my gigantic, heavy suitcase up the stairs. I was so happy to be on the ground again. Yeah, the good old ground.

Her home is truly lovely. It is exactly how I would have guessed her home would be, warm and inviting just like her. I felt comfortable there immediately, just like a home away from home.
After she put my stuff in her spare bedroom we both went back downstairs. We were chitter-chatting the whole time, both so full of excitement.

She went into her kitchen and as I walked into the dining room I saw something that really took me aback.

Sitting at a dark brown dining table were two dark brown chairs. The chairs had flowers carved into the backs of them. The chairs were exactly the same chairs that fifteen years ago I had to have.

I finally found out after all those years why I had to have those chairs.

In my wildest dreams I could never of dreamt of meeting a person that many years later who would own those same two chairs. It’s really the kind of thing that fictional stories are made of, not real life.

I asked her where she got the chairs from and she told me that her grandmother had given her the table and chairs years ago. I told her about my chairs and she couldn’t believe it either. We both thought it was a hoot.

So, now here I sit. Almost two years later and Dream has become one of my closest and most cherished friends.

I know that people and possessions come and go from our lives, sometimes quickly and sometimes they fade away over time, but I hope that Dream is in mine for the rest of my life.



*Note: I've been working on this blog entry for a long time. It's still not even close to doing justice to the wonderfulness of Dream. I figured it was time to go ahead and post it though*