[ dinner plates ]

Today as I set the table for dinner, I fell in love with our dishes. With our table. With the memories I cherish of being surrounded by the most important people in my life, sitting in these chairs. I love the sight of our too-full table. When we have company, we have to arrange & rearrange just to fit two of our chairs, which are actually just bar stools from the kitchen. I love the way the orange evening sun reveals the many scuffs on the jars we drink out of. I love all our mismatched plates dressed in their fair share of scratches and chipped rims. I don't even mind the occasional bruise on my hip that big old thing causes in passing. 
I feel as though a dinner table says a lot of the family that sits around it... And ours says so much of us. The bright acrylic paint that decorates the surface may not be artwork worth displaying, but it is the result of hours of imagination & moments of artistic revelation. I love the nonexistent finish on the legs that have held the weight of hundreds of meals. I even love the pile of dishes in the kitchen sink after we've filled up on food and laughter, because it's evidence that we were there. That we really did sit around that table for the umpteenth time to share just another meal together. I know that the table and dishes aren't what make the memories, and I know that my mama would probably rather have a metallic purple-paint-free table again someday, but this table, at least in my heart, will always remain as our table. Our dinner table. 

Wobbly legs and all.

x Madeleine

9.21.15