Table Stories
Today, we’re proud to feature a guest post by one of our partners, Meg Sullivan. As she relays her stories of all we share with our family and friends over a dining table, we’d like to take the opportunity to wish you and yours a warm and wonderful holiday season. Happy holidays!
There are several reasons why we didn’t continue that ritual, and as I sit and think of everything I learned at my parents’ dining room table, I despair that he missed out. It’s not that we didn’t sit as a family and have dinner. We ate together all the time at our kitchen counter. Our boys scoffed at the thought of sitting at the dining table—too formal. Maybe we would ask them too many piercing questions.
I learned more at my family’s dinner table than I probably did in all my years in school. We discussed politics, corporate minefields, gossip about the neighbors, and school. For most of us, if something important happened in life, some awakening your father or mother provided, some hurtful discussion you had with your kids or your partner, it probably happened at the dinner table.
I remember the food, too—mid-week, mid-century dinners of Rice-A-Roni, spaghetti sauce made from a packet mixed with canned tomatoes, chipped beef on toast. My father, who adored my mother, met each plate with enthusiasm. “Oh, Dinty Moore Beef Stew on rice, it’s perfect!”
It was the place I completely changed the course of my life. Five weeks before my wedding, my mother and I sat at the dining room table and addressed invitations. She asked me if I wanted to drive to Kansas City to buy the wedding dress—a huge gesture coming from a woman who was about to see her daughter make the biggest mistake of her life. Everything slowed way down and came to a stop. I sat there, and for once my mother had the wisdom to sit and be silent while I struggled with the reality of what was to come, while knowing what would be lost. I wanted to go to college, I wanted to live and travel outside of Iowa, I wanted to pursue my interests and that was never going to happen with him. So I called it off.
We hope when you gather at your table this holiday, you are surrounded with peace and love. And, if you’re lucky, perhaps a great epiphany.
Images above:
1. Dining room table, Christmas Eve 1984 – Me stuffing my face next to great-aunt, grandmothers, sisters, in-laws, and father. Ethan Allen table and chairs, solid wood and veneer
2. Same room, breakfast 1975—Me reading the Des Moines Register, and mother preparing for work. Formica table with harvest gold legs. (Hippie headscarf)
