Hooked into the Cheek of a Memory

After Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo.

The first one was my Nana and Papa’s, a panhandle, dust bowl aged hand me down old oak, four chairs with spindle backs, just something to rest our elbows and our dinner plates on; newlyweds with un-dented wedding bands. We felt bona-fide when the electric bill came with both our names on it, the last one now shared.

We thought it was the grown up thing to do so we bought a brand new table from a furniture store on credit. This time the wood was closer to plastic, painted black, and any wear in the patina was just manufacturer decoration the way people make new things look old so you’ll pay more money for them, which makes about as much sense as ripping holes in a new pair of blue jeans (and then I remember I purchased some just like that not long ago).

We thought we were Really Something with our black fake worn faux wood table, square shaped, eight chairs. In those days I was playing the part of dutiful wife and homemaker quite nicely; uncorking Pinot Noir and cooking from scratch - sourdough boules and soups with herb bouquets boiling in the mirepoix to add more flavor. I remember one particularly impressive Flemish beef stew cooked inside of small pumpkins that I hollowed out myself even while feeling hollowed out. Every seat was full that night at dinner. Eight baby pumpkins. Eight glasses raised and clinking. I felt like a God as they scraped the tender flesh out of them, steam rising, mixing it with the stew, all that goodness.

We made the next table with our own hands. Picked the wood, special ordered the legs, then screwed, sanded, stained, bolted the thing together until we had what felt like our real, proper, own, Very First Honest Family Table.

This is the one where babies became little boys. This is the one they saddled up next to, dug their rounded front teeth into the wood the way you do a #2 pencil. They got older, school boys scribbling drawings in graphite then pen, then writing their names and, eventually, their very own stories. The table stopped being about their dad and I and started to be about the gathering of us, the we, the four and then the five. Late night trifold Social Studies projects sat on the table with remnants of orange-topped glue sticks and construction paper slivers cut out with young hands. Honey Nut Cheerios hardened the next morning along with a drip of syrup or oatmeal. One of us accidentally ran off paper with a purple marker and that evidence was there, too. That eyesore somehow became my favorite, one I’d travel over with fingertips as I sipped my coffee and read the Sunday New York Times.

No matter how hard I scrubbed there were elements the table wouldn’t give up, each hooked into the cheek of it; a memory, a moment, mess. Something flaky, salty, juice of summer peaches running down our chins delivered from Colorado grandparents, the deep groove of a steak knife from the night Papa cooked his famous tenderloin with bordelaise sauce the year before he died, and a million other meals, big and small, grown from seed or store bought. We made time for the table and whatever we brought to it.

Recently some young men came to haul that table away to the dump. It’s wood warped with irreconcilable differences, it was left out in the weather at the end of the marriage. Then in the garage, land of excess and forgotten things. When a thing dies, all the untold stories die with it. Whether it’s a father or a table, there are some ghosts that won’t be given up. Here lies the cruelest joke of love and time and loss and while I’d love to file a complaint with Management, I have a feeling it won’t get me anywhere.

The table was good to us, a giving tree that tried not to give up. Eventually the years had taken their toll; warping, weeping, crumbs and secrets hiding in the wood grain, cracking splinters turned to brittle kindling. And the history of the thing faded away, making room for what comes next.

…

Optional:

How about you? I want to know what is conjured this time of year when you think about the table. If you’re willing, comment and share it with us.

With Love,

Ash