Around the table

It is season when we spend a lot of time around tables. The table itself is symbolic and may be real or implied and the analogy has to be modified because technology enables our tables to be continents and time zones apart. Around the table we enjoy or tolerate co-workers, family of origin and family of the heart.

We gather at an altar to worship. We gather in dining rooms, kitchens and restaurants to share a meal. We gather to simply be together, to fight loneliness, to celebrate, to remember. We gather out of tradition, because of duty, because it is expected. We gather in spite of. 

Some gather for the annual bird count or the annual team rivalry. Cousins will teach a new recipient of Chutes and Ladders how to play and in another part of the house, whatever is trendy will be projected on the huge or laptop screen. For a while the men will gather in one room and women in another. It may be baby's first Christmas or grandpa's last Hanukkah. I remember a year where I returned to Buffalo with the thought that either my brother or father wouldn't be there the following year.

Life being what it is, some will gather around a graveside, new or old, but all our gatherings include saints and ghosts. Sometimes we acknowledge their presence, like at a company I once worked for that left an empty chair at the table for a founder who died suddenly. Some we allow to haunt benevolently but others we need to exorcise, and perhaps plan to not set a space for them next year.

Diplomats line up across a table and more meet in strategy rooms. Cowboys, shepherds, refugees and soldiers sit around a camp fire and the incarcerated in cells. Meals on Wheels will drop off food and greet the recipient who may then sit at a TV table alone. Fathers will sit at small tables to enjoy imaginary tea with their daughters.

Think about all the "tables" at which you sat this year and what made it unique. Think about where you will soon be a guest or a host and see if there is anyone else you need to invite to pull up a chair to make it a richer experience. Then do it.

Marilyn