It’s the same table we sit at every day, three boys at breakfast, a mom and her littlest at lunch, all four at dinner. An old table with truly grand wobbles, the original paint worn to an enviable patina of milk white and warm wood, “henry” scratched into one place and dinosaurs rubber-stamped all over the underside. A brown check tablecloth unfurled over the scratches and dents for an evening, the five mismatched chairs stand up a little straighter. On top there’s candles: taper holders from the woodcraft store, some finished with wax and oil and left plain and two painted by eager four-year-old hands a shade of bright apple red, filled with fresh tall candles in shades of November-sky-blue, sage-leaves-for-the-stuffing green, and honeynut gold; a twisted homemade taper - half puddly already - in a royal blue chamberstick and a perfectly molded beeswax apple on a chipped ivory plate. Gone to seed grasses and goldenrod are mixed with dried garden strawflower and globe amaranth and craspedia. There are milkweed pods and a small branch of crabapples and a vining length of bittersweet creeping from the jar. At each place is a plate and each plate is its own, a collection held together by just one thread – that they are mine. Most have flowers, some a worn gilt edge, all of them belonging in their place at the table. There’s a crystal tray bought for $2.99 that I’d pay again every time I use it just to be met with the memory anew, again of my grandmother’s Christmas eve party and the small crystal dishes on her table. There are cloth napkins, a ragtag gang like their plate kin, and there is hope that amidst everything refound and gathered together we find full bellies, big laughter, and that deep in the heart sense that we all belong right where we are.
This is my thanksgiving daydream and I’m grateful to you all for dreaming it with me.
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