This is a picture of a sofa we once owned.
It is a lovely-looking sofa and we enjoyed being its owners and its occupants while it was in our house. But there came a time–not that long ago-when this particular sofa left off being the marvel we once thought it was (or, for us, ever could be) and we sold it.
But that’s not the story, really. That is merely what happend. The story is how we sold it, and to whom, and when, and how, and what that says, in a microcosmic way, about living in a small, friendly community that sometimes loses its friendly, and sometimes finds it again when you’re busy being assaulted by obligation and responsibility.
Like most communities, we have a Buy, Sell, Trade FB page for the area. I posted the lovely sofa on that and got exactly zero bites. Deterred, I let time pass until the sofa grew just too unwieldy for us and I had to find another way of sending it off. I contacted Habitat for Humanity but they would take too long and I am never sure who is going to wind up with my still-has-life-in-it piece of furniture when a nonprofit is involved.
It is true that we live in a small sort of community, and it is true that it is more or less friendly, in the way that most quaint smallish towns are friendly. People say ‘Hi’ on the street and at the stores and for the most part everyone drives the speed limit and doesn’t lay on their horns when you’re star-gazing or daydreaming at a green light. A polite toot usually does the trick. Most people know that the green arrow at Maxwelton and 525 doesn’t work but that the traffic on the other side of the highway still has a red so you can go ahead and make that left without causing a collision.
The South Whidbey community, where we live, is in possession of something nifty called Drewslist. It’s like Craigslist but only for South Whidbey folks, and only on email. You can’t google it. It’s kind of exclusive, but also very welcoming. Sometimes it’s an email overload, but it’s part of the quirk and charm of living here. The featured image of this post (sofa, above) was the one I sent to Drewslist along with a blurb about the item and why we’re selling it. It read like this (the centered text is a Drewslist trademark):
Sofa for sale. It’s comfy and good for naps and we really like it only we already have two other sofas and it’s just the two of us here in the house, so it seems a bit excessive. Comes with throw pillows (some red, some yellow–if you want them).
Asking $100 obo.
I included my name and email as well.
I clicked it off and went about my day and the next morning my friend Rachel called me. Rachel is a lovely, incredibly talented and generous young woman whom I met at St. Hubert’s Catholic Church the summer I volunteered to teach Vacation Bible School. This led to a whole vista of opportunities and right-turns and life decisions and generally good things. But since last June, we hadn’t really been in touch, though we said we would be…
So a call form Rachel was a surprise, but definitely not unexpected and definitely delightful. She began with the quintessential (and appreciated) small-talk and then got down to business.
“We used to have a sofa just like that one,” she delcared, in response to the Drewslist ad she’d seen that morning. “And we were reminiscing about it and missing its cozy, comforts. It was a perfect napping sofa.”
I remarked that this, too, was a perfect napping sofa!
“So, can I come over and sit on your sofa?” It was an invitation I could not pass up, especially as she would be bringing Henry, the adorable one-year-old munchkin.
Times were arranged, schedules improved, and not two hours later we had struck a deal. She and the family would come by the next morning to pick it up and introduce it to its new geography. And so they did. We opened the French doors, hauled the yellow giant out, and felt blessed for having friends who truly were part of this island with us, and whose presence in our lives meant something. They are a family of four living in a tiny house and working, living, being generous with their happiness, sharing their joy, and leaving behind not just $100 (which has since been gifted to another friend Rachel who has twin one-year-olds and needs a spa day more than anyone else I know), but their kindness, their vulnerability, and their friendship.
When that flowered beauty had been loaded into the truck and was safely on its way to Rachel’s, I looked around and noticed that it looked less empty than it had before, despite a massive yellow thing having vacated. Suddenly there was room in our room! There was thinking space and moving space; it was a space I now wanted to live in. We had been hanging on to that sofa for way too long. John sat on his sofa and I on mine. How ridiculous was that? We had grown a bit stodgy, not because of the furniture, but because we couldn’t see very well with all of that excess (as I had thoughtfully put it in the advert). It seemed only right to let something go, and to expect nothing in return. But to remember how to be friendly and to scale back to one’s true size, that was the key.
Nigel Valentine 