Sit, watch, pray

I’m sitting in an old chair. It was given to us when we moved to Shadwell to join E1 Community Church, very nearly 6 years ago to the month. When we first moved we didn’t have any furniture at all. The very precious Kathryn Copsey and her husband Nigel, gave us various bits and pieces to tide us over and the one item that we have not passed on to other people in similar situations has been this Parker Knoll arm chair. The browns, blues and reds of the floral material are faded and threadbare in places. But I love this chair. It used to sit in the children’s bedroom but it was a bit crowded in there so we moved it downstairs and into the kitchen, next to the radiator (perfect in winter) and book case (with a space for a cuppa, obviously). It is very worn and needs to be re-upholstered. It is in the corner of the kitchen, so I can daydream out the window and on a sunny day sit with the door open and watch the kids playing outside.

Today was the perfect day for sitting in it as I read, sent emails, did some work. You can feel like you’re in the midst of the activity but somehow separate from it too – in your own little cocoon. I watched G and J playing outside with the neighbours children. From chasing each other with sticks (!) and blowing bubbles; to tea parties with water, little pieces of apple and mini jaffa cakes and reading together; to setting up a funicular ferrying cuddly toys to DH, and cutting out animal shapes in coloured paper… they did it all! They fell into bed at 8:30pm and were asleep within minutes. From my well-loved chair I could watch, be consulted, appealed to, summoned, and crawled on to.

This day was a day that made me reflect with deep gratitude and deep sadness about our move from Shadwell. This is the garden where a baby G enjoyed her first al fresco meals in her Bumbo on the garden table, where I waddled and sweated while waiting for J to arrive. Where we have had countless picnics and cups of tea sitting on the wall in the sunshine. This small patch of soil that I have weeded, then let the weeds grow back, and then weeded again (x 6 years!) Today the simple joy of listening to children laughing together and playing outside, and then seeing the debris of their play (and the contents of our families homes) scattered all over the grass at the close of the day left me melancholy. I’m sad for the friendships that G and J will be leaving behind, and also prayerful and hopeful for neighbourhood kids in Havering that will easily share this simple childhood joy – running about all day with friends in the sun.

My chair is coming with us, although I don’t know where it will be going yet, it will bring within it somehow the memory of our home in Shadwell, and our special years in Tower Hamlets.