The Couch: Signs of Change

The Walk: Accidental death march around the neighborhood

Distance: 22 Blocks (3.3 miles)

Duration: Lost track of time toward the end...over an hour? 70 minutes?


Thoughts: I worked on this essay I was asked to write for school:

“The train stamps and stamps onward. I stand at the window and hold on to the frame. These names mark the boundaries of my youth.”
--Erich Maria Remarque

“Even though I’m only fourteen, I know what I want, I know who’s right and who’s wrong, I have my own opinions, ideas, principles, and though it may sound odd coming from a teenager, I feel I’m more of a person than a child—I feel I’m completely independent of others.”
--Anne Frank

Twice in the last week, in two different classes, I’ve found myself asking my students “how do you know when you have grown up?” They answered: “You don’t. You can’t.”

My students are brilliant.

Objectively, how can you know that you are, now, officially an adult and an experienced veteran of war instead of a frightened recruit (in the case of Remarque’s character, Paul Bäumer), or an independent, self-sufficient young woman instead of a little girl (in the case of Anne Frank). When do you realize that you are a pillar of salt instead of a woman (Lot’s wife from the Bible), a cockroach instead of a human being (Franz Kafka’s Gregor Samsa in “The Metamorphosis”), or a flower bending over its own reflection in a pond instead of a young man (in the case of Narcissus in Greek mythology).

Are you aware of the moment of change? Can you see it in yourself without external validation (Honey! What happened? You’re a pillar of salt!) Does it dawn gradually as you lay in bed and wiggle your multiple legs, flex your antennae, aware of some subtle difference, until finally you raise your head and see, unbelieving, the horrible change that has occurred? Or, like Narcissus, are you so absorbed in your own beautiful condition that you remain blissfully unaware that you are now a flower?

I still remember the moment when I finally felt like a full-fledged adult. It was not the first time I voted. It was not the day I could walk into the bar and legally order a Flaming Dr. Pepper. It did not even occur on a birthday. Instead, it was the day that I bought my first couch. Until that moment, it had been futons for us. Futons are cheap and practical. In a small apartment they can serve as both couch for TV watching and guest bed for those occasions when your friends drink too many Flaming Dr. Peppers and Brain Hemorrhages and need a place to crash.

Futons are also dreadfully uncomfortable as both couch and bed. As a couch, the mattress is always slipping down. As a bed, the mattress has an uncomfortable lump in the middle, from always being folded up. After a while, our friends wised up, stopped drinking mixed shots with silly names, and no longer needed a place to crash. So one day we decided to buy a couch.

It was a real couch, and it wasn’t even from IKEA. It was hand-crafted: velvety brown micro-suede stretched over a wooden frame and springs. Sitting down, one sank into soft, plump cushions. It took up most of the living room in our small apartment. As the delivery men wedged it into place, we stood back to take in the effect. Suddenly, we realized that this was no longer the home of two college graduates making do as we struggled in transitional jobs and graduate programs. This was the house of two adults. We were adults.


Now, long before this particular moment occurred we had begun to change. Our friends, our lives, our methods of entertaining ourselves. Had we noticed these changes? Perhaps, but the total effect was not understood until we found ourselves in the presence of that very grown-up piece of furniture: the couch. Will it be the same for you? Probably not. You may score your first couch from a street corner, or as a hand-me-down from a parent. At some point, however, you will have a moment. It may be your first apartment, your first payment on a brand-new car, or the first time you hear a helpless infant screaming for you in the next room. You will turn to someone next to you and ask, “Are we really that old?” And then you will tuck in your shirt over a spreading paunch, push the hairs back over the thinning spot on the back of your head, or tug nervously at the Spanx riding up your butt, and awkwardly shamble back to your state of unawareness. Trust me, it will happen.