The Good Couch

In our house, it is wide and sage green and backless, tucked between three windows such that, in those rare right moments of spring and fall and maybe summer, the breeze collides on your cheeks and bent knees, your neck is supported just so that you can read the perfectly-propped-up book on your thighs, and the sun, at golden hour, enters through our hanging crystal and gauzy yellow curtains, throwing rainbows across the walls. It is so spectacular and romantic it feels almost wrong that it is normal life: our overpriced Cambridge (read: Somerville) apartment across the street from a steam-belching hospital.

There is something about Cambridge, though. Somerville grasps at the edges of it, but seems distinctly younger, less mature, more quirky, less comfortable. In Cambridge, there are cobbled streets and people reading in cafes, scruffy academics reading term papers while they hurry along Mass Ave, and the sense, generally, that most people have a Good Couch. There is something distinctly adult about a Good Couch. You either have to make enough money to buy one, be astute enough to find one for cheap or free (this is true of our futon, which, while not The Good Couch, is A Good Couch), or be deemed sensible enough to inherit one from family or friends who sense your worthiness.

Our couch was a gift from J, a friend of my mothers who also serves a familial role for me, largely in the form of presenting me hand-me-down furniture and clothes with the ferocity of a used car salesman: “This is a piece of furniture that will last you forever,” they promised. “You’re going to love it, seriously, you don’t want to miss out on this deal.” (They were right.) 

A recent conversation with another friend of my mother's/ mother-like figure of mine, Leora, uncovered a disturbing truth, however: some people don’t understand the Good Couch.

Leora is not one of these people; she has always had a Good Couch. Her’s, speckled purple–and now in Jerusalem, having joined her in her move from Berkeley–long enough for one person comfortably stretched out and seemingly designed for napping, also featured lighting in the right places to read, flat surfaces to put coffee cups and a plate with a cookie, and good sun around late afternoon. These were intentional choices; ask Leora and she will tell you, scornfully, of houses without these things, and the soul they therefore lack.

I've been to homes without a Good Couch. They often also do not possess enough blankets, feature mostly overhead lighting and generally house people who don't fully appreciate the soul-shaking glory of a fantastic home-cooked meal. 

I have never understood this. What is a home if not a place you want to spend so much time it puts a strain on your relationships? To the chagrin of many in my life, the Good Couch will almost always hold more of a pull for me than the Good Bar, the Good Party, the Good Club. I understand that people without a Good Couch might be more inclined to leave their homes, experience the world, dance, adventure etc. etc. etc. I just don't see why you'd ever want to prioritize adventure over comfort (oh dear, my Hobbit side is coming out...).

Our couch has been with us for two years now, practically in the same sun-soaked spot in our old apartment–wedged between three windows–as that in our new. It is where Talia falls asleep on Friday nights, where Juliana curls up on Sunday afternoons, and where I read on cold, sunny Saturday mornings. Is has stains from eating chocolate on it. The cover doesn't fit over the front left corner since I washed it into shrinking over the summer. It is where we nap; where we station ourselves on parallel sides, knees intertwined, talk for hours; where someone is tucked into someone else's arm while we watch TV.

It is the pièce de résistance, the first stop on the house tour, the pride of all three of us: a mark of adulthood with unmistakable traces of girlhood. It is the Good Couch, and we, certainly, are better for it.