Sometimes "stuff" isn't just stuff.

This is my table.

This table is the first piece of furniture my husband and I bought when we got married.  Because we were moving right after the wedding we got mostly cash as gifts - which I so thankful for once we got to Fort St. John and looked into the back of the u-haul at all the heavy lifting we had to do by ourselves! The only major item we didn’t own at all - not even a reasonable facsimile - was a table. So we immediately hied ourselves down to the local United Furniture Warehouse and bought ourselves one.  I had absolutely no sense of my own personal style at that point but I grew up with a wooden farm table that still holds a magical place in my heart so my only requirements for a table (then) were solid wood and square.  Hugh wanted to get something with leaves but I didn’t want the surface of my table marred by the line breaks necessary to accommodate leaves.  We ended up with a rectangular solid oak table that came with 4 chairs and no leaves.  11 years, 3 kids and countless dinners with friends and family later, oh how I have regretted that stupid “no leaves” stipulation!

Anyway.

Eight short months after we unloaded our u-haul in Fort St. John we loaded our table and everything else we had accumulated over 8 months, like dishes and mugs and queen size mattresses, into another, bigger, u-haul and drove it to Vernon to begin our next adventure.  For our first anniversary my parents bought us the bench that went with our table.  Then after five years in Vernon we loaded our table and chairs and bench and all the other things we had accumulated, like a canopy bed frame, proper couch and coffee table, cribs and baby paraphernalia times two, into yet another u-haul and drove it here.  Which is a story in and of itself.  After 11 years of life with us our table has lived in 2 apartments, 1 townhouse, 1 rental house, 1 duplex and is now in our current home. 

Around that table we have played games, celebrated birthdays, milestones and anything else we could think of to celebrate.  We have made friends and created memories.  We have laughed late into the night and we have cried deep, chest-heaving, grief-filled sobs.  We have nursed three babies while trying to eat one-handed for the sake of getting to eat something hot - for once!  Those babies have grown into children who create artistic masterpieces - sometimes in permanent marker, sometimes in non-washable paint (why do they even sell non-washable paint for kids?)  These chairs have been dragged around to create the audience seats for a show, they have been stood on, knocked over and fallen off of.  There is gorilla glue holding together more than one chair back.  The varnish on the table top is worn from sun and constant scrubbing.  There is a knot in front of where Ava sits that has turned black and created an actual divot.

There’s a Johnny Cash song that I think about when I look at my table.  It’s about an old flag pole that’s leaned a little bit and a ragged old flag hanging on it.  This flag goes on quite a journey - with Washington across the Delaware, the Alamo, WW1, Korea, Vietnam, the list goes on.  It gets cut by swords and shot by muskets and cannons and is generally in pretty rough shape.  When I look at my table I think of my favourite line from that song “she’s getting threadbare and she’s wearing thin but she’s in good shape the shape she’s in.”

If I could take my design aesthetic of today back to United Furniture 11 years ago, I probably wouldn’t choose this table. It’s an orange-y oak colour for one thing which I do NOT love.  The chairs have no softness to inspire lingering (though we definitely do anyway), and it has no leaves.  Ideally I would love a table that could seat 10 or 12.  I know I could paint my table.  I could get different chairs for it.  I could scour kijiji for a fixer-upper replacement that seats more.  But you know what?  I love it the way it is.  When I look at my table I see our family history. I love the patina of worn varnish and permanent marker that has been achieved over our life together.  As is, this table really doesn’t go with my style now but it’s rubbed shoulders with us long enough that it’s no longer discordant; it works somehow.  And it wouldn’t feel like home without it.