I\u2019ve never encountered a chaise longue that I felt compelled to wilt down onto. In old paintings, women are always dramatically reclining on chaise longues, calling for their smelling salts after the aristocratic husband drops dead from gout at 32. <\/p>\n
However, whenever I\u2019ve encountered one of the elongated armchairs in the flesh, they\u2019ve always looked overstuffed to the point that you feel that you\u2019d bounce right back off if you attempted to sit or lie down. <\/p>\n
Then, this past November, I met a chaise longue that changed my mind. I had the pleasure of spending a week in a very grand room in an early 19th century country pile, and there I discovered a piece of furniture that I\u2019m now bereft to have to live without. <\/p>\n
The Lady Guthrie Suite at Annaghmakerrig House in Co Monaghan was once, as the name suggests, the bedroom of the woman of the house, which today serves as a residential artist\u2019s retreat. Lady Guthrie (Judith Bretherton) and her husband Sir Tyrone Guthrie lived in the house for several years before dying a few months apart in the early-1970s. In his will Tyrone Guthrie, a much-celebrated theatre director, bequeathed Annaghmakerrig to the Irish State for use as a creative retreat. Skip forward a few decades, and it\u2019s there that I found myself in a bedroom bigger than my apartment looking at a chaise longue and wondering if it was comfortable. <\/p>\n
It was my first time ever visiting such a place. I won a bursary from Kildare County Council to spend a week at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, with a proposal to work on a creative non-fiction project. I arrived on a pitch-dark November evening, with rain coming in sideways and the approach roads around Annaghmakerrig almost exclusively one-lane boreens. More than once, I thanked my lucky stars that my early driving education was rural and involved reversing around haybales and swerving into ditches to avoid oncoming traffic. <\/p>\n
I was nervous. I didn\u2019t know what to pack, so I packed everything. I didn\u2019t know one single other soul who was going to be there. What if they turned me away, laughing at the idea of me calling myself an artist? <\/p>\n
My fears were unfounded. I was hardly in the door when a fellow resident gave me a tour of the \u201cBig House\u201d, which was bigger than I expected (I had already mistaken the gate lodge for the main event). When I was shown to my room, sorry, my suite, I was gobsmacked. There was the writing table set in front of a bay window overlooking a view that was promised to be a lake when the sun rose the next morning. <\/p>\n
The bed was so high, I had to clamber up on it. The wardrobe threatened to suck me into Narnia if I let it. It was the kind of room you had to journey across to retrieve your hairbrush from the dressing table. And of course, there was the chaise longue. <\/p>\n
I went swimming a few times in the lake, one day gingerly stepping into the freezing cold water and side-stepping a dead crow, wondering \u2018can I get a book out of this?\u2019 <\/p>\n
I retreated to the chaise longue every evening after dinner. Dinner at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre is a family affair. All residents are expected to convene at the long, long table in the large downstairs kitchen of the house to share a meal and discuss what they\u2019re working on, how the day\u2019s gone, whether they\u2019ve braved the lake for a swim yet and, most importantly, whether they\u2019ve met Freddie, a local Labrador retriever who is absolutely gagging to be petted at all times. <\/p>\n
My housemates came and went as the days went on \u2013 poets, visual artists, screenwriters and filmmakers. It was at times fascinating, intimidating and inspiring. I was invited to take part in an embroidery circle where we worked on the hem of a cloak meant to travel around to groups of women who\u2019ll sew and learn about the divine feminine. I made friends with two theatre makers, and we worked our way through a national pastime: trying to find out who we know in common. I went swimming a few times in the lake, one day gingerly stepping into the freezing cold water and side-stepping a dead crow, wondering \u201ccan I get a book out of this?\u201d <\/p>\n