The Table

When I was living with my parents we had a dining table. It was round and my mother covered it with tablecloths that changed according to her moods and the season. The dining table always had a flower pot in the center but what made this dining table particular and different was that nobody dined on it. I misbehaved often so I ate in my room most of the time. My father was seldom on time for dinner and the only one that sat at the table was my mother, by herself. The family didn’t.
When I was 8 I started living with my grandmother. She had a big oval dining table. She crocheted a tablecloth following a complicated pattern and in the center was a big fruit basket ceramic figure she bought at a Turkish store. This table wasn’t all that different from the one at my parent’s house. Nobody sat down to eat. My grandma used to eat her dinner with her hands out of a bowl kneeling in the kitchen. I sat on the floor besides her with my plate in my hands. The table was an accessory to fill up an empty space, nothing more.
I grew up and moved into countless rooms, apartments, houses or plain places in which having a table would be a great privilege. Finally I bought my own house. The previous neighbors left a small table, a rectangular one with two chairs. I’m not refined enough to put fresh cut flowers or crochet a tablecloth, but this table has something that sets it apart from all the others. I sit down to have dinner, to read, to work on my homework and even write. It’s good to finally have a table put to its proper use in my life.