Making Space To Be Closer

This post was taken from Cultivating the Beautiful Life, my Substack newsletter. Subscribe here.

Hello my friend,

The time of having wee-babies has passed for us, but the incredible change that occurs in that decade post-birthing is remarkable. It feels like Stuart and I should still be the “young, cool couple” with swaddled newborns and car-seats in tow. I can smell their sweet little milk breath and feel my lips against their plump cheeks still.

(Side note: I could’ve happily had a few dozen babies with my man).

We were comfortable in that younger stage of our family and both of us really delighted in it. We saw our children — really saw them. We were intentional with our time, prioritizing our family at all costs. We sat down for meals, we had fellowship, we connected and even still the time has slipped through our fingertips.

Now, with much larger and independent children at hand, I began to notice that we would squish and cram ourselves together at one end of the dining table. Is it old-habit of being close enough to spoon feed babies? To nuzzle a babe to my breast while I eat one-handed? To help pour and cut and poke the food for the littles?

Why do we want to sit so closely to each other?

One of the many benefits of our old renovated cottage is the central dining room — all the other rooms branching off from this nucleus. Central to this central room has been a large (very large) wooden table that Stuart made for us years ago with reclaimed lumber. It was a table that was intimately made, intentionally carved and styled by his hands. Special and unique. The centerpiece to our center.

And yet…

the big-table as it was, taken last year

At roughly nine feet long, and for over a decade, the table claimed the entire space of the dining room as its own. Picture the six of us, all crowded to one end of it — squeezing tightly into less than half of the space. Why are we doing this?

Over time, we began to stop using the dining room table for eating all together. Instead, the small second-hand table in the kitchen became where we began to organically eat meals… the boys shuffling chairs to and fro from the “big table” to the “kitchen table”. There’s not room enough for us at the kitchen table, our elbows bump and our chairs knock.

the kitchen table, not fit for six

And yet this is where we find ourselves drawn to. What is it about a smaller table that we like?

I’ve observed our odd table sitting manners for over a year now… giving thanks for the big-table that we really do love (even with its layers of sharpie, glitter glue, and wads of gum stuck understand).

This table has seen laughs and tears, painful conversations, arguments, and forgiveness. Countless friends and family have bellied up to it, sometimes pushing aside math books and broken pencils. My babies were held up in high-chairs on its edges, creating permanent squished-banana stains from years of little ones, and names carved into the wood. It’s seen stained and ironed tablecloths, most far too small for its large stature, and bouquets from the first gardens we planted here at the cottage. It held the casket flowers for dear friend’s daughter, pink roses and apricot blossoms strewn all about the dining room.

It is a table, but in my heart, it’s about as close as an inanimate object can come to a living piece — a snapshot of life and time of our growing family over the past decade.

But we needed to be closer. We kept choosing to be closer.

A big, expensive, stark dining table was never going to be a solution for us. Elliotts are far too hobbit-ish for such a purchase. Instead, for months, I watched marketplace for the right table. A local family relocating, looking to re-home their own family table (complete with their now-grown son’s names engraved as he learned to write it), was just what the doctor ordered.

Our big table now sits outside in our eating area where it can be it’s large, proud self (and sit us + guests for three-seasons-of-the-year!). A much smaller, much more intimate old, oak, oval table now sits in its place. It is an imperfect, well-loved piece that fits perfectly into an imperfect, well-loved family.

perhaps a sanding and oiling is in our future, but for now, we settle

The smaller table does more than free up walking space for larger humans in the dining room. It’s seemed to pull us together, physically and emotionally. Now, people sit there — naturally. Our meals have once again moved out of the kitchen and we find ourselves bellied up to the dining room table, even for snacks, cocktails, and breakfasts.

Is it because we’re once again at a normal human distance from one another?

Is it because we somehow recharge when we’re close?

Is it just easier to pass the salad when you’re within arms reach?

The table is often draped in a lovely summertime tablecloth, colorful and inviting. I delight in keeping our new table beautiful and uplifting — cleaning off moonsand and swords and socks and banana peels at least 7,167 times per day. My favorite candle in the middle, with the bouquet of the day, is enough to keep the space full of life and intention.

We’ve found ourselves playing cards around it before bedtime and gathering around it for school lessons.

Perhaps one of my favorite parts of the table, just like the big table, is its imperfections. My aspirations in the home have never been to be sterile, stain-free, overly-stylized, and perfect on the edges. I couldn’t even if I tried. Instead, we shape our space and home to fit the family. A family that lives here…

… and apparently, a family that likes to eat together… closely.