Learning to Let Go: Change and Adaptation in Elizabeth Passarella’s Memoir
In It Was an Ugly Couch Anyway, Elizabeth Passarella examines how people respond when life uproots their assumptions about home, health, and identity. The book’s thematic claim is that change is inevitable and often disorienting, but adaptation—through releasing physical or emotional attachments, tolerating uncertainty, and choosing presence over control—can build lasting resilience. Passarella traces this journey across three major transitions: the disposal of her father’s beloved couch, her husband Michael’s baffling medical crisis, and the family’s effort to stay in their Manhattan apartment building during a pandemic. Through symbols such as the couch fabric, the Central Park run tattoo, and Lois’s ceramic camel, she shows that letting go does not mean forgetting, and that adaptation requires both stubbornness and surrender.
The Ugly Couch: Letting Go of the Tangible Past
The book’s title essay centers on a nine‑foot rust‑plaid velour couch that Passarella’s father bought in 1968. The couch followed the family from Tennessee to New Orleans and finally to New York, where it ended up in her children’s bedroom. Though everyone acknowledged the couch was ugly, it was supremely comfortable and held decades of memories, especially of her father, who died in 2019.
When Passarella decides to sell the apartment, her real‑estate agent insists the couch must go. Rather than pay $5,000 to reupholster it, she skins the couch, keeping the velour fabric in a bag in her closet. This act—cutting the upholstery off the frame—literalizes the process of adaptation: she preserves the sensory memory while releasing the object itself. The couch is eventually sawed in half on the sidewalk, and Passarella admits the loss still haunts her. Yet the apartment sells quickly, and she learns that attachment to things can be transformed into tenderness without possession. The fabric scraps symbolize both her grief and her willingness to hold on to only what she can carry.
Health Crises: Adapting to Uncertainty
Chapter 2, “What Doesn’t Kill You,” shifts from objects to the body. In 2014 Michael donates a kidney to his father and later develops rhabdomyolysis, followed by a series of fainting episodes diagnosed as vasovagal syncope. The episodes culminate in a prolonged faint at work that leaves him injured. Passarella confesses her desperate desire for control and clear answers, but the medical reality offers none. She learns to accept that certainty is elusive.
This adaptation is emotional rather than practical. Passarella must revise her expectation that she can manage every outcome. She undergoes her own minor health scare—a benign abdominal lump—and recognizes that the only reliable response is gratitude for each day with Michael. The chapter parallels the couch story: in both cases, she cannot fix the underlying problem, but she can adjust her attitude and priorities.
The Apartment Saga and Staying Put: Choosing to Adapt
The prologue and epilogue frame the book with the couple’s effort to buy a larger unit in their building after selling their original two‑bedroom apartment. The saga involves a hoarding widow, Lois, and a year of living in a sublet while waiting for the deal to close. In the epilogue, Lois takes only one item from the apartment—a ceramic camel that belonged to her husband—while workers find old passports and dozens of tiny religious charms. Passarella returns the passports to Lois and vows never to move again, even as she admits life may force further change.
During the pandemic, as described in “Staying Put,” Passarella resists leaving New York. She compares herself to a burrowing owl from Carl Hiaasen’s Hoot—friendly and extroverted on the surface but stubbornly digging her own hole. She hates accepting help, yet she accepts the use of a neighbor’s apartment for remote school and forgives friends who fled the city. Her adaptation here means learning vulnerability: she stays to heal alongside New York rather than escaping.
Complexity and Contradiction
Passarella does not present adaptation as simple or triumphant. She admits she lied about how well her family coped during the early pandemic, and she struggles with the tension between wanting permanence and knowing that life is never static. The burrowing‑owl metaphor captures her stubbornness, but she also acknowledges that “making those moves is worth it.” In the epilogue, she declares that she is never moving again, yet the very next sentence reveals she is open to guinea pigs—a small, comic surrender to unpredictability.
The character of Lois reinforces this complexity: she lets go of a lifetime of hoarded possessions but keeps one camel. Passarella, similarly, keeps the ugly couch fabric but throws away the frame. Both women adapt by selecting one meaningful object to hold, accepting that everything else must go.
Symbol Connections
- The ugly couch fabric: represents emotional residue that can be preserved without the original object.
- The Central Park running route tattoo: a talisman for permanence that Passarella resists getting until the deal is final; she craves a fixed point in a shifting world.
- Lois’s ceramic camel: a single, tangible link to a deceased spouse, mirroring Passarella’s own attempt to keep a piece of her father.
- Lois’s missing passports and photo IDs: symbolize the forgotten identities we carry and the need to return them to their owners—a metaphor for reclaiming one’s history.
Study Questions and Answers
1. What does the couch represent in terms of Passarella’s relationship with her father?
The couch embodies her father’s personality—his stubbornness, his love of comfort, and his quirky taste. Skinning the couch allows her to keep the tactile memory (the fabric) while physically releasing the object. It shows how adaptation permits selective preservation.
2. How does Michael’s health crisis challenge Passarella’s need for control?
Faced with rhabdomyolysis and fainting episodes that have no clear cause, Passarella must accept that she cannot fix her husband’s medical problems. Her adaptation is emotional: she learns to live with uncertainty and focus on daily gratitude rather than demanding guarantees.
3. Why does Passarella call herself a burrowing owl, and what does that reveal about her adaptation style?
She identifies with the burrowing owl’s extroverted howdy‑bird persona and its stubbornness in digging its own hole. This metaphor reveals that she adapts by maintaining a facade of competence while secretly resisting help. Over time she learns to accept support, which is a form of adaptation.
4. What role does Lois play in the theme of letting go?
Lois is the hoarding widow who must empty her apartment. She keeps only a small ceramic camel from her husband’s belongings. Her choice mirrors Passarella’s own—both women find one talismanic object to keep and release the rest, demonstrating that adaptation does not mean complete erasure.
5. How does the book’s epilogue complicate the idea that we can “finally” settle?
Passarella declares she will never move again, yet immediately admits she is open to guinea pigs, a small sign that life will continue to change. The epilogue suggests that adaptation is an ongoing process, not a single event; even those who vow to stay put must remain flexible.