The Butterfly Hours Memoir Project: DINING ROOM TABLE

by Norman Rockwell

For 2019 I'm running a year-long series on my blog in which I share my responses to the writing assignment prompts found in THE BUTTERLY HOURS by Patty Dann.

I welcome you to join me, if you like! I've divided the prompts by month, and the plan is to respond to 3 (or so) a week. For some of these I may write poems, for others prose. The important thing is to mine my memory. Who knows where this exploration will lead?

In January I wrote about: apron, bar, basketball, bed, bicycle, birthday, boat, broom, button, cake, car. February's prompts are chair, chlorine, church, concert, cookbook, couch, dancing, desk, dessert, dining room table, diploma.

DINING ROOM TABLE

We ate at the kitchen table, as none of the homes I remember from my childhood had a dedicated dining room. In the Burns Lane house in Birmingham, Alabama (the last home I shared with my family of origin), we had to walk through the kitchen through a narrow opening to get to the table which just fit between the stove and bay window. (I believe the table was oak, and oval-shaped, with a leaf that never came out, because our family of 7 needed all the space we could get!)

For Sunday meals we would crowd around, all scraping chairs and bumping elbows to behold the table covered in dishes: pot roast (which my mother prepared in the morning, so that it could cook in the oven at 325 degrees while we attended church), pear salad (a lettuce leaf topped with a canned pear half then sprinkled with grated cheddar cheese), rolls. 

We joined hands and someone – my father, usually-- would say the blessing, that went something like this: “Thank you, Lord, for the food we are about to receive, and for the nourishment to our bodies. For Christ's sake, Amen.” We all chorused “A-men,” with a long A, and then we dug in. We passed the dishes counter-clockwise around the table so that everyone could get their portion. We talked, we laughed, we teased... these Rockwell moments never lasted long, but I do treasure them. I'm grateful to my parents for their efforts toward making these traditions a part of us.

The poem “Family Dinner” in CAN I TOUCH YOUR HAIR? (with Charles Waters) also chronicles a family dinner tradition, though it wasn't one from my childhood but from my parenthood:

art by Sean Qualls and Selina Alko

Best and Worst

Each night we go around the supper table, say the best part of our day, and the worst. Bests are easy as creamed potatoes: an A on a math test, Pajama Day, new shoes. Worsts stick in my throat like tiny fish bones: the bracelet I lost and still can't find, my sniffly nose, what Shonda said at recess. But saying it out loud helps. We listen and laugh. After supper we all play a trivia game and once I even win. - Irene Latham

And here is a new poem:

Kitchen Table

I've known card games,

homework

all sorts of stains

and scratches.

The busy hum

of a sewing machine

quick click

of a calculator.

I've endured tears,

fists,

easy swipes

and hard polishes.

But nothing compares

to Sundays

when the plates

sit heavy,

warm

when the jostling

and chair scraping

has stopped

and they all link hands,

resting them ever so lightly

on my face

and someone says,

thank you thank you

A-men.

- Irene Latham