The Nice Furniture

My People on the Nice Table

I am not unfamiliar with “the couch you can’t sit on”. Growing up, my best friend had a gorgeous great room with two story ceilings, a $12,000 entertainment center, and a white couch that we couldn’t sit on. Being so young, we accepted this rule without protest, even though it fundamentally made no sense. Why have a couch you can’t sit on? I remember thinking about “The Nanny” and her mothers couch covered in plastic, which seemed ridiculous. But, if Syliva Fine from Flushing Queens did it, then it suggested that protecting couches was a universally accepted thing to do. It also suggested that wealth had little to do with it. That maybe all people like to keep their stuff nice. More specifically, maybe all good mothers should keep their stuff nice. Naturally, when her parents weren’t home, we’d rebel, lounging on the couch listening to the epic Spice Girls ballad “When 2 Become 1” on the surround sound.

Sylvia Fine of Flushing, Queens circa 1994

And then, as they tend to do, our periods ruined it all. It only took a few months for me to fully denounce anything white going near my body’s sitting zone. The pure terror of anyone finding out I had a functioning uterus was too much for me to bare. I won’t sit on that couch. What if I bleed through? Eventually, we moved upstairs to her bedroom, close to the tampon stash and privacy to troll gross men in AOL chatrooms. As I grew up, I inched closer to understanding why we couldn’t sit on the couch, but the gilded concept felt entirely too misguided to me.

I vowed to never be a person that had a couch you couldn’t sit on.

During my second pregnancy in 2020, amidst a terrifying global economic and health crisis, I decided we needed to update the dining room. I painted the walls a rich, velvety matte teal. I finally hung some mirrors and prints that had been collecting dust in our basement. After searching endlessly online I decided on a large, wooden table that cost $700, which was (and still is) serious money for us. I vowed to serve and protect this table with all my might. It was like this island of adulthood and pride amidst a sea of juvenile chaos.

Dining Room WIP, Summer 2020

Once the dining room was complete, I’d indulge the ideal of a happy family dinner, but internally panic about cleaning the table off afterwards. I’d rush through dinner and leave before everyone else was finished. I’d immediately wipe up milk rings and tuck napkins under my husbands sticky fork that somehow never made it on to the placemat. I thought I was doing the right thing by my dear table. I was using it as it was intended all while taking very tight care of it’s surface. My mom, my friend’s dad, and Sylvia Fine would have been proud.

And then one day, Auggie, who is every bit of four and a half, put together and painted a wooden toy car on the dining room table. I laid out butcher paper, put all his supplies on a cookie sheet, advised him to be careful, and spied on him from afar. I remember specifically his commitment to this project, even though he was easily frustrated by crafts with a lot of steps. He had out the box it came in to act as a guide. He thoughtfully painted each wheel and waited patiently for glue and paint to dry each step of the way. I made a mental note to appreciate that moment; his desire to complete the car intersected with his apprehension over making a mess and getting it “wrong”. He was thriving.

A few days later I was taking some photos on the dining room table, when I noticed something. Three swipes of paint. Dried swipes. Crappy acrylic craft paint that doesn’t wash off easily, or at all. I wiped, I scrubbed. I even got out the stainless steel sponge and tried to gently scrape, but nothing was getting that paint off.

The Paint Swipes

For over a year I had successfully managed to keep the table free of permanent stains and scars. I got hot. I could feel the anger, regret, and shame bubbling inside me. I was already preparing my excuse for what my mom would say next time she came over. Oh Samantha, your poor table…what did you do? I immediately thought about the couch at my friends house growing up. I had internalized that couch as THE model of adulthood, responsibility, and moral goodness and here I was, staring at evidence that I failed to achieve any of it.

And then I remembered Auggie.

Photo: Heidi Drexler

How happy he was to complete that car, how excited I was for him to enjoy art making. The price I paid to see my complex little child flourish in something that normally posed a huge threat to his emotional stability was three paint swipes on a table. Steal of a deal, if you ask me.

You might think the moral of this story involves a young mom overcoming her clean freak, perfectionist tendencies, but you’d be wrong. This is about a mother letting go of the antiquated idea that our worth and general goodness is wrapped up in how well we take care of things that represent value, but actually hold no value. The table was nothing but a source of stress trying to preserve it’s perfection. And now, with the addition of those three paint marks, I am officially not a person who has a couch you can’t sit on.

-SC

My Careful Little Artist