a love letter to my former dining room

vol. 1 | "love letter to a place" series

Dear Childhood Dining Room,*

As far as I know, you had two purposes: Christmas dinner and Hanukkah dinner. What else went on with you?

One of my favorite memories from when we first moved in is from the night we were waiting to have our new kitchen table delivered. We were in the middle of a mac and cheese dinner when the furniture company called and said the delivery truck was wrapping up its route and the table would be coming tomorrow instead.

For some reason, my mom was incredulous. She pleaded for the table to be delivered that night. “I’ve got two kids, and we don’t even have anything to eat on,” she said, averting her eyes from the old table where two kids were clearly currently eating. “Please,” she begged.

Feeling sorry for her, they said they would see what they could do.

Pretty quickly, the operator called back; they had asked the drivers to make one more stop. “And good news, they’ll be there in 5 minutes,” is what they must have said.

I assume this is what they must have said, because the next thing I knew, my mom slammed the phone down and began barking orders.

“Everybody get up and lift. I told them we don’t have a kitchen table and they’re on their way. We gotta get this thing outta here and into the dining room…”

I’m not sure if I added the Benny Hill theme song (IYKYK) in my revisionist’s history or if my dad actually did start humming it as we each hoisted our respective sides, replete with now-lukewarm bowls of pasta, and waddled across the linoleum. I’m pretty sure we all breathed a sigh of relief as the last of the chairs made its way around the table and the doorbell rang, my sister and I lingering to block the view.

So, thank you, dining room with three purposes: Christmas dinner, Hanukkah dinner, and hiding our old kitchen table…that one time.

*End Notes:

It’s Valentine’s Day. Let’s launch some love.

Three years ago, I co-facilitated a workshop with Charlotte Peck on the concept of “writing a love letter to a place.” The first letter I ever wrote was to a lake house in northern New Jersey. It makes me both smile and cringe to read it now (as most of my personal essays do over time).

I’ve been meaning to write a love letter to my childhood home since the night we moved my mom out, 14 months ago. I finally sat down to begin during my Wednesday in-person writer’s group meeting, and I got out this bit about the dining room.

Instead of waiting another 14 months for the rest, let’s go room by room in this periodic series.

Interested in writing your own letter? I’d love to see! Here’s some prompts to get you started.

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash