The Table That Holds Us

When I was seven, my grandmother would lay out a spread on the low wooden table that seemed to stretch for miles. She never let us eat until the tea was poured and the steam had finished its dance toward the ceiling. I remember the way the light caught the edges of the olives, making them look like polished stones found in a riverbed. Back then, I thought the food was the point of the gathering. I thought the purpose of the evening was simply to satisfy the hunger that grew in our bellies after the sun went down. It took me years to realize that the food was merely an excuse for the proximity. We were not there to eat; we were there to be held by the same space, to hear the clink of glass against glass, and to acknowledge that we had all survived another day. What we kept was not the taste of the meal, but the quiet, heavy comfort of being known by those sitting across from us.

Ali El Awji has captured this exact feeling in his image titled Ramadan Delights with Kiri. It reminds me that a table is never just a surface, but a place where we anchor our lives to one another. Does this image make you miss the sound of a chair pulling up to a crowded table?