the dinner table

It’s that time of year again when my parents make their way back over to europe, escaping the heat and humidity of asia in the summer. They are due to arrive at the end of the week and this has my brain working overtime due to the excitement of it all. I cannot wait to see my parents. Their arrival means that my brother and I will be pilgrimaging to Frankfurt where the four of us will get to spend at least a few days together before we head off in different directions again.

Having my parents come home means listening to stories about their time away. Sharing jokes we’ve picked up in the time we were apart. Reflecting on where we all are in our lives and making sure the rest of the family is up to speed. There will be cooking and eating and drinking. Knowing my brother, there will be whiskey involved. It never plays out exactly the same, our little family reunions. But they do always play out around our dinner table.

Our dinner table is the same one we’ve had for as long as I can remember. Maybe that’s not strictly true since I seem to remember one before it… but that really was half a life-time ago. In any case, the dinner table is central to my memories. Not because all memories of consequence happen around it or that we spent all of our time sitting at it. But because it is the most consistent. Let me explain. The dinner table is not just for dinner. Growing up, it was also our breakfast table. We were never a family that would eat on the go, whenever we had time. There was no grabbing something out of the fridge and rushing off to school or work. As children, we had it drilled into our heads that eating breakfast together was important. We started our day together, as a family. There was also no turning up for breakfast if we were still rubbing sleep out of our eyes, hair uncombed, faces unwashed. Only if we were washed, dressed, bags packed and ready for school could we sit down for breakfast. At breakfast we would find out what everyone else was doing that day. It was the same every morning. And in the evenings, after my father would get home from work, we would sit down together for dinner and tell each other what happened during the day. That dinner table is so hard to think away from any memories I have of home. It is always there. At the beginning and end of every day.

When our family finds itself together again, the dinner table is, as always, at the centre of it all. Now that we are older, our routines have changed, and the few days we have together are more holiday than daily grind, our lives around the dinner table have changed. Long nights and late mornings typically mean that my brother and I turn up late for breakfast. Still, my mother never fails to set a place for us regardless of when we do emerge out of our rooms, rubbing sleep from our eyes. Lunch is a more regular occurrence. However much the routine has changed, that dinner table has not. It has always and will always be a part of what it means to be home.

I’m not at that point in my life where I can say that my German and I have forged a home for ourselves away from our families. When we first moved into our apartment, it drove me nuts that it was taking so long for it to feel like home. It took me a while to figure out that it was the lack of a dinner table that was making me so crazy. Once we had remedied the situation I felt much calmer. More at home, as it were. However, I have to admit that the German and I don’t eat breakfast together. At the table or otherwise. Our timetables are not compatible enough for that to take place. And dinners are more often than not eaten in the living room, on the couch. Not at the table. But then again, our little Ikea table isn’t the table of my past. Or his.

When I think about what the future brings, where we will be and the kinds of lives we will be living, there is not much that I can say for certain. But there is a large, wooden dinner table that will mark the beginning and end of every day.