THE TABLE

Dear People,

I am writing this letter to tell you about myself.

I am a table, not just any table...I am ‘the’ table.

Well, in my home I am commonly known as ‘the table’.  I don’t understand why all tables are called ‘table’.  It is like my friends around me, there are generally six and they all have the same name too, ‘chair’.  They are all called the same.  The people in my home have different names and they all look different, but not the chairs around me.  Maybe I am special because I am the only one with the name ‘table’.

I live in a house, not too big, not too small.  I am the exact size to match the family that surround me often throughout the day, the evening and sometimes; through the night (this all depends on events in my home).  I see, experience and feel lots of things happening in the kitchen. Oh yes, that is where I live, in the kitchen, with my mates chair, chair, chair, chair, chair and of course, chair.

I am pretty normal and an ordinary looking kitchen table.  Being of timber construction with my top of four planks stained a sandy-greenish-gray hew I think I look good. I have modestly strong shapely legs that manage to support not only my weight but also the weight of much food.  There are times when I feel other weight of the emotional kind upon me.  Humans have weighty problems and issues sometimes.

It is lucky that I am also able to support the limbs and heads of many people when their life becomes tough.  I have felt human tears upon me, so I hope the smell of my wood helps them as their head is resting on me.  My owners describe me as being timbered, rustic, knobbly legs and of a rectangular shape.  It sounds ok to me.

People seem to talk a lot, especially when they are happy, sad or angry.  Don’t misunderstand me, I have no way of hearing things other than though vibration echoing through the room and through my timber but I know what is going on though, from my perspective that is.

Tables and other wooden things are often seen as objects that are made from dead trees but the reality is that although the tree that forms my presence has gone, the timber remains alive.  It is cellular and still alive. 

Perhaps you have seen timber that has been bumped, dented and damaged.  Over time the dents and damage seems to recover to a degree...well, this is why.  Mind you, I still have chips out of my leg that will be there forever, that is until my leg falls of and I am thrown away I suppose.  Perhaps I will be recycled and live a renewed life as something else.  Or even become a part of the earth like fertiliser and help flowers grow.

As I become older and relive my past experiences I become more grateful for being a table.  I have seen many things and, I have been of service.

There is honour of having lived a life of service.  Although I am an old wooden table, in my own way I have helped to support people and this is my way of being of service.

People, the family in my house, have sat around me many thousands of times and I have enjoyed their company whether it was for good times or not so good times.  I can’t talk for the chairs, they don’t express themselves but that is possibly good because that means that the chairs can’t complain.

Back to the family, they were two big and two small people and then there were another two small ones.  When these two very small people arrived the big people were very happy.  There was music, dancing, singing and lots and lots of food.  I think it is called a ‘party’.

Then two others that were really, really old came and lived in our home.

One day a small one was not around anymore and later one of the old ones went...somewhere.  When these people went, the others, the two big ones and the last little one, who had become bigger, were very sad.  They ate lots of food then and I could feel great sadness. There was no music and dancing. 

I don’t understand, what happened to the one old one and the young one, perhaps they went and became fertiliser like I might one day and help flowers grow.

There was sometimes a lot of thinking, writing and discussion upon me, the table.  At times there were really loud vibrations accompanied by thumping on me, shouting even.  I later heard that these were called homework, the boyfriend and ‘why on earth did I let her have the car keys.’  I don’t understand though.

It is not really my place to understand.  But it is my place to stand in the kitchen and be supportive, regardless of things placed upon me or simply to be a resting place.

I am proud of being a table.  I have been a good utility and have been of service.

Yours sincerely,

Table.

Verde.