"Our Dining Table" Holiday Recap #3
When my husband and I were engaged, we didn't know what to do with ourselves. In Egypt, a couple buys a condo, does a complete interior re-design, picks tile and chandeliers and every piece of furniture together. Months of fighting over paint chips and carpeting styles. We were students, and we knew we'd continue to be students for several years, and we were going to wait for University housing lottery to tell us where we lived and whether the apartment would be furnished or not. I was perfectly content with that, but the urge to furniture-shop was too strong. So when we came across a Japanese-styled wooden dining table at a Pier One Outlet, we bought it.
It came in a huge box, and as I was living in someone else's house at the time, my husband crammed it into his bedroom in the apartment he shared with three other roommates. Months later, the University lottery gave us a furnished apartment (despite our request for an unfurnished one), so in the box it stayed. We tucked it behind our bed--a large cardboard backdrop to our marriage.
Four years later--yes, you read that right--we finally moved to an unfurnished apartment in a different state with a completely different calling. And finally unpacked the dining table. What an exhilarating experience! We were so happy we were going to see that table again--and so nervous pieces would be missing long after the outlet had closed and the table stopped being produced. And we put that thing together and set it proudly in its spot and ate at it every day.
I hope I made it clear how precious this table is to me and how long I waited to see it in all its glory because now we come to part deux of this tale. Over the Christmas holiday, many "adults" in my life (you'd think I'd count myself among them by now, but no...) made suggestions (both gently and roughly) that I should cover this table to protect it. A tablecloth, they say. Some suggest a fabric one, others a clear plastic one. All of them say, "You're ruining the wood, you're scratching the wood, protect the wood."
So here is my manifesto on the table:
I want this table to be scratched and stained and to wrinkle. I want it to take in the memories of our life and bear the scars proudly. I'll pledge it and lemon oil it and whatever else it needs. I'll embrace its beautiful parts and its ugly ones. And when it's unbearable as the center of the family dining area, I'll move it into my library and work there for the rest of its life. I'll give it purpose even when it's worn away by time and the trials I've put it through. Because I would appreciate the same courtesy.