Friends who showed up most Fridays (and showed up in many other ways in our lives) with snacks and crafts for our kids. Location: Palangkaraya, Indonesia
The table we left behind in Indonesia when we moved to Colorado last summer has wrinkled finish and warped wood, the marks of daily high humidity and tropical heat. Flecks of colored paint from Friday afternoon crafts with my kids’ friends dot its surface. And streaks of turmeric from dinners of saucy Asian curry and rice stain its edges.
That table was made for us. Literally. I scribbled measurements and handed it to a local carpenter when we first moved to Tarakan, a small Indonesian island. And we, our family of five, made the table part of a sometimes challenging, but rich life.
Most of the furniture in our Indonesian house was either made for us or passed on to us, in that special way in which almost nothing matches and everything has a story. When my babies joined our lives, I’d pull up the hand-me-down high chair to the table’s edge, and steal bits of conversation with my husband in between baby squeals and splatters.
I threw birthday parties around that table, doing my best to make cakes in the drippy heat, the frosting melting down the cakes that were supposed to be airplane landing strips or cute animals or dollhouses. Thankfully, my grandma’s recipes made up for the messy designs and were a hit with both American and Asian bellies.
We made Christmas cookies from hard-to-find fresh butter and, at that table, decorated them with icing and candies with help from Muslim neighbors. It was the least we could do, in return for their constant kind invitations into their homes and traditions.
Our family spoke prayers over meals there. Our requests gently entangled with the sound of daily evening, haunting calls to prayer from neighborhood mosques.
We welcomed strangers and friends to dine with us at that table. I usually liked to make something I’d never made before, just for the fun and challenge of it, and to spur on my husband’s teasing when it sometimes turned out to be an utter failure.
In the middle-of-the-day heat, or in the late-afternoon hubbub, or with late-night breezes, we worked through life at that table. With friends, with kids, with neighbors, with each other, we leaned in, listened, processed, expressed hurt, were heard, cried, laughed, played, believed, trusted, shared dreams, made important choices, made mistakes, apologized, forgave, spoke truth and offered love.
We moved the table with us to two more homes in Indonesia, first in a pick-up truck just down the street to a slightly bigger house for our growing family. The second time, it traveled in a container around the coast, then up a windy road to go to our Borneo home. The moves reminded me of life as an Army kid in the States, bringing up both grief at the losses and hope for new friends and opportunities.
At that last Indonesian home, our table was in my favorite room—a back porch that was more outside than inside. We shared it with plenty of ants. But we enjoyed scents from our plumeria trees, views of a shy civet cat that would sometimes emerge at night, and time as a family after long days of working and homeschooling.
One of my favorite memories of that table was when Brad would eat breakfast with our youngest son, our earliest riser, and the child we almost lost once to a serious illness. If our son woke up in the middle of the night, he’d curl up in a chair near the table, falling back asleep, just to make sure he didn’t miss their time. They’d chat, peel their hard-boiled eggs and point out the birds—Brad named them Fred and Ethyl—that hopped across the top of our swing set in our backyard.
The table, like most of our things, couldn’t come with us for our recent move to Colorado. The table and its stains belong to another family now, with their own chance to make and be made by a life there.
Now we’re working on building a life in Colorado Springs—where my parents and sister live, and where we’re in the process of introducing my Asian-born American kids to this country they think is fun but they don’t yet fully understand. We found a house to land our transition-weary selves—close to family, near beauty and as a launching point for many new adventures.
We’ve got a new table too. Thankfully, not new, though. This one wasn’t made for us, but was saved for us. My extended family in the States kindly gave me the table that belonged to my recently deceased grandparents. It ties me to family history—a comfort among all the recent endings, and a rarity in what has been a rather nomadic life. And it’s marked with its own creases, stories, prayers and laughter—just the way we like our stuff.
Just a few months in and at that table, we’ve hosted family gatherings, breakfasts after sleepovers, pizza with a family missing their deployed dad, homework help, games played after dinner, planning sessions for hikes, new recipes and enjoyed long-favorite ones, and good cries and heartfelt prayers over the many stresses of transition.
It holds up our meals and holds together our family. And in a beautifully symbolic way, it faces east, its sunrises and its everyday opportunity to begin again.
My grandparents’ table from their rural Missouri, now in our Colorado home, covered with snacks for some new friends who showed up to enjoy an evening of food and games.