metal lawn chairs

There are metal lawn chairs in my yard.  Two of them my parents bought at a garage sale in the late 50s, early 60s before I was born.  One we trash-picked- it was in pieces and covered with rust.  The other looks exactly like the one my parents bought.  We pried it out of the hands of a grumpy 'antique' dealer at great price (for us, anyway) because it looked lonely.  Every few years I paint them- they get rusty and give up their colors. 

When we were first married, I took the original two from my parents' basement.  They were all rust and chipping paint.  I worked on them in my shop (I was a props artisan at a theater then).  I stood on the work table with safety glasses on and tortured them clean with a wire brush in an electric grinder.  They forgave me by showing me the red and white  my brothers and I had painted them in the 70's for some big family reunion party.  I painted them red and white again and they were the only furniture in our big empty Victorian living room. 

I've used steel wool and all kinds of paint over the years to clean them up.  I've worked on them on top of the newspapered dining room table, on the balcony of that Victorian apartment where they lived for several years, on top of the picnic table that we bought from the theater after the show it was built for closed.  (It'll last forever- that table, built extra strong to accomodate being danced on every night of the 6 week run of that show-twice on weekends with the matinees).  I worked on them one year whenever the baby took a nap, nestled on my chest in the baby sling with a napkin over his pink head to keep the paint off. 

Now they are shades of blue, green, teal.  When last I painted them I hadn't been to the ocean in too many years.  It rained all that spring.  They are the colors of sunlight shining through waves. 

Today I drug one under the big maple tree and plopped down, my bare feet happy on the cool earth.  I leaned way back,  watching the branches part and sway in the breeze, leaves winking.  I started out thinking about the addictions treatment center I visited for the first time today, and the colors I will paint with the staff and clients.  I thought about supplies and storage and scheduling. I thought about marriage counseling and soccer practice and what to fix for dinner.  I thought about the ocean......the trees.....the sky.....and the chairs. 

I might be ready to paint them again sometime soon.