Kitchen Table

It’s taken me a number of years to understand how I live in a home versus where or what kind of house it may or may not be, emotionally connecting, a feeling that my home provides to me has become an extremely enriching experience. 

As I start my story I can’t help but think of all I’ve read, incredible stories and what I’ve seen, beautiful pictures of homes and their proud owners talking about where they live, passionate descriptions of places that are sacred to them, how they embody the memories of families and friends, places that comfort the soul and are canvases to express themselves, places that represent an extension of themselves and who they believe they want others to see and feel about them, Places filled with treasures collected and mementos displayed. 

I know there’s more to it, something larger at play and with awareness of something bigger than my house and my things. I have learned there is no one self and even at home in the most personal of places I’ve realized I’m part of something so much more than myself, we are all connected, and every living and nonliving thing has a story that is carefully intertwined with another and yet another carefully weaving together a symbiotic connection of everything to everything else.  Finding this awareness is an extremely enriching way to live one’s life no matter where or what kind of house you have or where you call home and it becomes how you choose to live your life. 

 My mind often wanders at home in a beautiful way, there are so many stories in our home, each whisper to me with the temptation of the magic of a story worth the attention of the present moment to pause and hear. 

Just yesterday I was in the kitchen where I have a wonderful farm table that’s been in our house for years, does it reflect my taste, yes, does it make the room with its patina and antique hardware, of course, does it represent the gathering place for family yes and it’s surely seen and heard the most important conversations of my life. All things modern designers and architects like to write and celebrate in magazine profiles or book jackets. 

I think there’s more. What’s far more enriching for me is that a simple table is part of everything in my house and more meaningful it’s part of everything in this world and the world is a part of it. 

Built by early Dutch settlers in the very village where I live, its distinctive hard oak came from the same trees I still have on our rural farm in upstate New York, a community laced with history and folklore that would inspire anyone with a curiosity about early America.

In our village, the same sun that rises each day here today still has the same purpose now as it had from the dawn of time, it soothed these spectacular oak trees that my table is made of, and the sunlight flirts with the leaves that have provided shade for everything beneath its mighty trunk for thousands of years. When the sun plays hide and seek with summer clouds,  It rains,  those same rains that I’ve stood in my whole life,  and for so many before me. The rain dances on tree branches, eventually falling to the hallow ground that embraces the tree’s roots and enriches the soil, the leaves and acorns of the forest floor create a compost of sorts that’s been a home to so many insects and other little creatures more than anyone could ever count, I’m told as many as there are stars in the sky. The tree branches are home to every bird I think I’ve ever known, from the red-tailed hawks, and barn owls to blue jays, woodpeckers, robins, and even bald eagles, America’s proudest mascot. 

Being present enough to Look closer at the old oak tree It was easy to see caterpillars that feast on its leave and watch them become the butterflies, the forest pollinators that regularly ignited the nearby meadows to full bloom as did the honey bees’ home base, a beehive carefully perched on a branch, just far enough from a child’s reach. These oaks were home to many treehouses built by the kids in town and were forts that the families’ children experienced the joys of nature and the mischief of adolescence. 

The wood that sits calmly in my kitchen was carefully cut from the fallen trunk of one of these majestic trees and milled by the village carpenter as was the tradition of generations of craftsmen who had lived here. The soft-spoken gentlemen who picnicked under this particular oak and built my table had died when I was just a boy. It was rumored that in that very spot, he proposed to his wife of thirty years. 

The village men and women Carefully crafted each part of these tables individually with worn hands and callused fingers, each table was built with mindful intentions. There was nothing done in haste, the wooden pegs that were used instead of nails were carved on winter nights, besides the warm fire of the traditional Dutch farmhouse.  

Once completed the table was not simply sold for profit it was traded for cabinets or a wagon amongst friends that in turn crafted treasures of their own, each had stories that were so very much the same while being so completely different yet connected. 

So when I sit to have Thanksgiving in our family room with generations of friends and family it’s no wonder someone inevitably asks me about our family room table and would I please, please tell the stories.  The story can be told with infinite versions as our world past and present is made of everything we have ever known and everything we will ever know. 

I look around my home and everything has meaning nothing is there without purpose. 

When I find myself alone in the gentle light of the summer morning  as it carefully passes through the trees and meadows of the farm to settle on our kitchen table, I sit in my favorite chair watching the steam rise from a cup of fresh coffee. 

It is these moments when it’s hard not to hear all the stories around me, all whispering a soothing chorus and I feel the grace of all of what makes the old farm table and everything else in our wonderful home so miraculous as it blends together as one. Our home actually breathes and as I join in its breadth it wraps its soul around me with all its parts, I smile with the awe of knowing I’ll never be alone, there is no self and I’ll never be alone I’m part of something so much more. 

Home is being home.