It is Saturday night. The stiff wind of the afternoon has ushered in a chill that shakes my shoulders as I get out of the car. It is the first day of March and, so, I should have expected the wind, but I will never not shiver in its presence.
I am here to sit around the table with people I love, with people whose genetic material and history and at least some sensibilities I share. “It's nothing fancy,” my aunt proclaims as we take our seats. There is a platter of hot bread, a bowl of rice, and a pot of steaming gumbo, piquant with chunky tomatoes and bell peppers, but no okra because my cousin doesn’t like its sliminess. We pass around paper plates, paper bowls, and plastic spoons, making it easier for the cook who will, as she always does, refuse help in clearing the table and washing the pots.
When the bowls are empty and our bellies are full, we stay, leaning in as though the table were a fire and we our ancestors. Our shoulders curve into one big circle – a cave, a womb, a place of safety – as we talk. I have done this hundreds of times; it is as natural as breathing.
We pass around a book that my cousin has put together, a photographic collection of recipes of the woman who was my grandmother. The recipes, written in a hand that is anything but florid, take us back to the kitchens we remember, the kitchens where she tied on her apron in one quick twist and set to rolling out dough for biscuits and dumplings or flouring chicken. They are written on envelopes, the back of deposit slips, scraps of paper torn from wire-bound notebooks, and include notes on their provenance – “from Minnie Lee,” “out of Linda’s book.”
The images spark a conversation about her difficult childhood and we shake our heads in amazement that her heart and her arms remained open. We tell stories that make us laugh and cry; we ask questions to which there are no answers; we share memories and correct each other on minor details.
The hours slip by. Somebody yawns. Somebody stands up to stretch. It is time to go. I take with me a Rubbermaid container of leftovers. It warms my hands as I step outside into the damp coldness. “Be careful,” my cousin calls from the porch.
I have told the story before, the story of the Thanksgiving long long ago, the Thanksgiving when I was still small enough to sit under the dinner table while Grannie and Mama and the aunts talked. The men and children were long fed and the women could take their time nibbling on bits of ham, slicing off the crispy edges of the pound cake, sipping coffee.
I have no idea if they knew I was there. I sat quietly, so still that my feet went to sleep. I stared at their legs, watched them cross and re-cross their ankles and tuck them beneath their chairs. I always say that it was sitting under the table – along with afternoons shelling peas and mornings shucking corn – that I learned to tell stories.
Tonight, though, I learned something else: It is at the table that we, like the medieval knights who had to remove their weapons in order to sit, are invited to lay down our swords, encouraged to reveal ourselves, welcomed into a vulnerability that is both frightening and enlivening. It may well be the only time when our masks slip enough that we are truly seen.
The world needs more tables.
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