The Table Where We Live

Leave the Dining Room but Keep the Table

My sister told me the other day that she wanted to sell her dining room table but no one will buy it. I was aghast. Firstly, that she no longer wanted it and, secondly, that no one else did either.

Then, to support her claim, she sent me this article by Melinda Fakuade: What is the dining table really for? Apparently, dining rooms are a thing of the past.

This makes me sad. It’s not the demise of the dining room that bothers me. Any room that isn’t used regularly is a waste of space and drains us energetically. It’s the living in that makes our houses homes.

Ah, but the dining table -- that is different. Dining tables are more than surfaces for eating. They are vessels for living.

As silent housemates, they ask for nothing, and exist only to serve. Here, let me hold your plate and your coffee. Sit beside me and talk. Play a game. Work. Strategize. Put your head on me and cry. Bang your fist. Make plans. Write. Solve problems. Create. Deal cards. Visit. Spill your wine? I’ll catch it. Beside me, you will be nourished. Come, fold your hands over me. Eat.

Dining tables hold us together as families. They support all our activities – essential, important, creative, even trivial. And, by extension, they support our souls.

Some of the best moments of my life—and my very favorite memories—happened around dining tables.

As a kid: My father nudging my elbow with a fork whenever I put it on the table while we were eating. Devotions and advent wreaths. Celebrating birthdays. Playing monopoly. Making “silver” earrings out of tin foil. Learning how to set a table for family, for guests, and for parties.

Dinners at noon on Grandma’s farm with six to ten kids. Passing bowls of food and being scolded for reaching. Deboning bluegills and sunfish. Watching Grandma eat watermelon with salt and a fork. Hiding potato pancakes in a napkin. Drinking tea out of china cups and eating wafer cookies. Buttering toast and wiping up the crumbs. Playing endless games of Rummy.

When my parents divorced in 1976, my mother still had us eat dinner together at the dining room table. This is where we would talk about school, friends, and even her job. This is where we ate baked potatoes and corn made in the new microwave. Where we laid out the Christmas cookies before and after baking.

Around my father and stepmom’s large dining table we ate stuffed pizza, lamenting that even the large wasn’t big enough. When friends joined us for dinner, my father, who sat at the end in a tall wooden chair, would ritually pass around a common cup of extremely good wine as a communion of sorts.  

This table was always filled with books and papers and bulletins, letters and cards, and more. While my father was dying, we managed to keep the clutter to one end while we ate at the other. But once he entered hospice at home, the table became buried. People brought lots of cookies and treats, which was so very kind but what we really needed was food.

We sat on couches and chairs nibbling sweets until one night, my brother, who had flown in from California, said enough. He orchestrated the clearing of the table and together we shared a meal. I don’t remember what we ate, only how significant it felt to be sitting together at that table again.

That table was still relatively clear a few days later when my father died on Christmas morning. And this is where we were sitting with friends around a meal they had prepared when the funeral home arrived. Where we were sitting when they wheeled him away.

After that, it was my own dining table where I shaved my head. Twice.

For years, my sister’s dining room table was the center of much activity. Where we ate many dinners with friends and around which we held countless parties. Where, on weekends and late into the evening, we made beaded jewelry.  

The first thing I purchased for myself when I moved to Idaho was an antique round pedestal oak table that extended to an oval. Every Easter, I spread it open and friends gathered for a large meal and hours of laughter. It was my favorite day of the year.

I sold that table when I sold my Idaho home. The only table I kept was an old oak square with a wobbly leg and sides that fold down. It fits perfectly in my current dining room, which is small and square and filled with three bookshelves. I bought four chairs on sale when I moved in, dreaming of having friends over for dinner. But alas, that has never happened. And with Covid, I’m not sure if it ever will.

Now, this dining table doubles as my desk. Where I eat breakfast and lunch, where I write, where I Zoom. Papers sit in piles and pens are always falling on the floor. But in a corner, I keep a vase of fresh flowers.

I recently considered purchasing a real desk, something more appropriate for working at home. Folding down the sides to this table and placing it against the windows. But I can’t do it. Having a dining table in the center of this room is too important to me. Call it feng shui, nostalgia, or sentimentality. This table anchors me to place.

Dining tables are a symbol of possibility, of community, and a way of living that is deeply nourishing. Whether in a kitchen, on a porch, or in their own special room, dining tables do more than double duty in the myriad of ways we use them. For work, for crafts, for playing, and for eating. Even when we are alone, these tables bring us together.

Take away the dining room but keep a table for dining. Use it any way you need. Underneath the clutter, these tables are a reservoir of memories, support, nourishment, and possibility.

I’m not giving up mine any time soon.

What about you?