Schell - The turquoise table: finding community and connection in our own front yard

A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years mere study of books.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

M y love affair with the table began with an F in high school French class. The failing grade prompted my parents to send me on an overseas immersion experience in France, where open-air food markets, home-cooked meals with host families, and quaint bistros opened a new way of experiencing the importance of gathering around tables to share meals and life.

That summer I learned far more than how to conjugate verbs. The most powerful experience wasnt the language or the scrumptious new foods like chocolate clairs and croque monsieurs... it was the ritual of sitting at the table. People in France gathered at tables not just once a week, not just for holidays, but three times a day, giving a whole new meaning to leisurely meal.

Their lunch lasted two hours; dinner could last all night. One night dinner with my host family was still going strong at 10:00 p.m. Gregarious in story, the father slammed his fists down on the table, the water carafe spilling over. The conversation was exuberant, although the details were lost on me, as I still hadnt mastered the language. Their heads were thrown back in laughter, and the entire family was engaged. I didnt need to understand the conversation to know I craved this kind of experience at the dinner table. My French brother, Phillipe, slapped my shoulder in a gesture for me to join in. I belonged at the table.

While I savored Brie and baguettes in the tiny French village of Ornans, I thought of our table back home. Adjacent to the kitchen, the dining room featured a modern, custom-made Lucite table with navy blue velvet, high-back chairs. The fabulously stylish clear table, however, was only used for special occasions such as Christmas, Easter, and dinner parties.

Sitting at the simple table in France I noticed the contrast immediately and craved the slower, authentic time to connect. I was a stranger in a foreign land, yet being at the table in France fed a basic needa need every human sharesto belong. The experience at the table was more than a meal; it was nourishment for my soul.

France offered me a model of what could be.

LONGING FOR THE TABLE

Two decades later, as a busy wife and mom in a suburban neighborhood in Texas, I realized again how crazy life is and how laughable the vision of a long lunch seemed. I didnt realize you cant import a cultural value as easily as a jar of Nutella; and I struggled against a busy, hectic culture as I tried to create space to gather around my own table for laughter and conversation. Most days it was a challenge to get the Crock-Pot plugged in, much less to get my busy family of six to slow down and sit down at the table.

It gave me a pit in my stomach. Our four children were growing up in an era where handwritten letters and talking on the telephone were as foreign to them as those first few days in France were to me. They were beginning to use emojis and photos instead of proper sentences to communicate with their friends and each other. I was afraid to ask the question aloud, Are we losing the ability to sit at the table and talk? Forget learning a new language, I feared we were losing the art of conversation.

I wanted to recreate something rich and real againlike what I experienced all those years ago in France.

And having friends over felt impossible! Trying to coordinate schedules between work and volunteer commitments, school meetings, soccer practice, and band concerts was futile. All these were good activitiesbut they left little or no time to sit down and catch up.

There we all were, calendars beeping notifications while we texted our apologies to each other, waving a quick hello in the carpool lane. This isnt how its supposed to be, is it? I wanted to recreate something rich and real againlike what I experienced all those years ago in France. I wanted the family table experience, and I wanted to extend it to other important people in my life. So I tried. I tried hard.

Because my brain was already on overdrive, I consulted Pinterest and flipped through Bon Apptit, Better Homes & Gardens, and other glossy magazines for recipes and decoration ideas. I overcomplicated everything and wore myself out. Instead of slowing down for a leisurely time with friends and family, I was busier than ever. The more I talked with people, the more I realized we all struggle with being too busy. We are living frazzled lifestyles, disconnected from authentic friendships in a society that idolizes busyness. Its taking its toll.

Somewhere along the way, exhausted and discouraged and coming unhinged, I scored another big fat F. Once again I was failing. This time I was trying too hard, focusing on the wrong things, worried about the food and the perfection of hosting people for parties. My effort to recreate the magic of gathering at the table bombed like a fallen souffl.

I struggled to find my way back to a table that would welcome people with ease and create a sense of belonging. I cried. I prayed. I just couldnt see what to do, until one day, it appeared: the Turquoise Table. It literally landed in my front yardan ordinary wooden picnic table that sparked a new way of seeing what belonging could look like. It didnt look quite like the tables in France, but it captured the essence of belonging as curious friends and neighbors stepped out to find out what this table was about, and they sat down to find out it was for them.