It was my first time in the (in)famous blue-and-yellow store. Apparently one of the last nations to catch on to the fad, Americans still seems fascinated by furniture that was made, according to the owners, “in places that are the most economically efficient.” As I stumbled around people and furniture of every shade, color, origin, and texture imaginable, the bold statement on a lampshade tag filled my already overwhelmed head with questions “Child labor?” “Free Trade?” “Maquiladoras en Tijuana?”
Something in me has always wanted a life of adventure – I slept on a wooden box for a week at the age of 7 because I wanted to prepare myself for the hardships of a life in a faraway place. When people talked about “settling down” for a career and having a house with things and a “white picket fence,” I’d inwardly laugh because I knew that could never be me.
Slowly life began to build fences around me, and I find myself constantly clawing my way over, under, and through them – yet I find I must treat the Fence with respect, learning to walk on it and quell my longing for the wide open world that still calls my heart to continue an infinite quest … the “fierce independence” that is ME.
Laughing with my friends, I kept telling myself to stop freaking out – that it was just a store, just a sofa. But I felt as if I was carrying around the furniture on my back with me… how can I buy things that tie me down? They are simply pieces of furniture; contracts to a place and inflexibility to an often-thankless job. I left with a plastic silverware divider.
There will be adventure in my new places and new people in a new part of my old city. And I could always buy a $199 black-and-white photo of the Eiffel Tower and pretend I was in Paris.
