I can't remember what the chairs were like. I realized this today as I was trying to figure out what sort of desk chair I should get to go with a desk for my apartment. (The desk will be a hand-me-down from my parents, but it doesn't feature a hand-me-down chair.) And I thought, getting a chair without armrests would be more compact. Am I used to having desk chairs without armrests? Then I drew a blank. I couldn't picture the '34 House chairs at all. An image floated through my mind of the cushioned light-wood standard-issue university chairs that I had freshman and sophomore year. But it wasn't those; all the '34 House furniture was older and crappier than that. Chairs changed shape, size, and color in my head, but I couldn't find the right one. How could I not remember the chairs I'd used for the past two years at school? I focused on the desk. The desk would help me remember the chair. Again the standard-issue university desk appeared in my head. No, it was smaller... sort of a maple-y color wood... narrow shelves... a bulletin board. There. I had the desk. I tried to make the chair match it. It wouldn't. What kind of chairs did we have at '34 House? I was lost. I tried picturing Maggie's chair instead of mine. Nothing. I imagined myself walking across the room and looking at my chair from the other side. I could see the jackets and book bags that I constantly left hanging on the back of it, but couldn't picture the chair. How could I forget the chairs? They were all the same, I sat on one all the time in my corner of the room, I climbed on one every night to get into bed... the chair by the bed! I imagined myself walking into the side room with the beds and looked at the chair, and there it was. A much darker wood than the desks, unpadded, black metal legs and supports. No armrests, of course. I was relieved. But it still terrifies me that it took me so long to remember a simple, concrete object from that part of my life. Was it really so long ago? I remember '34 House in a shadowy, impressionistic sort of way... the swirly window decorations, the futon overflowing with throw pillows, Maggie's blue-and-orange bed, the fishy curtain. It's all so dreamlike now, and it was so recently that it was real.

Most of the time, all this doesn't bother me anymore. But now and then I get a pit in my stomach when I realize that I can't remember simple things like the chairs.

earlier -- later