I’m usually careful with money, but two weeks ago, after what wasn’t even a lot of deliberation, I bought a finely carved antique wooden rocking chair. Don’t ask me what it cost – suffice it to say that I’ll definitely have to be on a strict budget for at least the next six months to pay for this purchase!

I don’t really know what made me do it. It wasn’t like I went out looking for a rocking chair. It was like the rocking chair sort of found me…

I’d been feeling a bit lonely for the last few months. After my husband died I went out to Sri Lanka, which is an island in South East Asia, and stayed there for some time, teaching tsunami-affected underprivileged kids English in a little village there. I absolutely loved it and when my sojourn drew to a close, I had decided to sell my American home and had grand dreams of using the money to travel wherever I pleased, preferably doing some social service work wherever I landed.

But I had to postpone my plans. My daughter, who had moved to Denver, shifted back near home with her two kids after her marriage fell apart. I wanted to be there for her for a while until she pulled herself back together, so I decided to postpone my traveling for about a year. Most of the time I do enjoy being around my grandchildren and my friends, but there are days when I feel so restless. I felt like I lacked that small something, I suppose you can call it inner peace of mind, which makes all the difference between the cup being half full and half empty.

It was in one of those moods that I walked into an antique shop that I passed during an evening stroll. It’s a cluttered-up overcrowded place that looks exactly like one of those old antique shops you imagine that have mysterious old proprietors and potentially priceless undiscovered pieces of art lying amongst dust-covered worthless relics. It was actually a fairly bizarre looking painting in the display window that caught my eye but once I entered it was the rocking chair that really held my attention.

She was beautiful – an exquisitely carved almost throne-like creation in golden glowing wood. “Real teak” the shop proprietor, an old Chinese lady assured me, though I have only her word (and the suitably hefty price I paid) to know for sure. There were intricate carvings of exotic birds, fruits and various twirls and flourishes on the head rest and the elegant arms curved daintily with the artful consciousness of a well-poised society beauty. There were exquisite horse heads carved at the end of each arm. She took my weight gracefully, almost as if she had been custom-made for me, as she gently rocked to and fro – and that was my undoing – I had to have her! She was faithfully delivered to me within two days of my writing out the check. 

Maybe it’s because I had never had a rocking chair when growing up. Maybe it’s because her rocking motion relaxes me and makes me pleasantly drowsy in the evenings during those silent moments before bedtime. Maybe it’s because I enjoy sitting on the porch with her on an evening watching the neighborhood kids as they laugh and play on our quiet street almost till sunset. She looks so graceful even with no one in her, rocking by herself. I imagine the children or grownups before me who sat there and whose favorite chair she must have been. When I am in her, she takes me out of myself, out of all the little worrying problems of life – and that, I think, is what makes her truly priceless…