November 9, 2006

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    The Life of a Table

    Clayfun

    I once heard about psychics who can touch objects and sense things about people who owned them or held them in the past.  I believe that these kinds of things can happen.  I have had the experience many times of knowing things before I could have possibly known them and knowing places before I've been there.  This subject content sounds like it would have been better posted on Halloween!

    One reason that I was thinking of this tonight is that Chase and I were coloring on my kitchen table yesterday and his marker marks were going off the page and onto the table.  They're washable markers but I don't worry too much about it.  I wondered if my table will hold the energy and memories of so many things being made on it's surface?

    We've had the table, a really thick, solid, bench-type table, for almost 20 years.  It was given to me by my ex inlaws because we didn't have a good one at the time.  I was careful with it for a while.  But the kids colored on it, painted on it, I painted on it.  We drew and sometimes were too heavy with the pencil lead, causing impressions into the wood surface.  I scrubbed off paint and glue.  I wedged clay on it and built many ceramic objects.  Chase likes to use polymer clay on it.  Sometimes I have to get the clay off with a plastic paint scraper!  The finish is coming off in places. 

    Have you ever seen those pre-aged wood pieces made to look like they've been around for a long, long time?  They look quaint but they have few memories of contact with people.  The wood may have memories of its own life, growing in a forest somewhere.  Then came the saw!!  (I wonder if the tree screamed?)  Then came the planers and sanders.  The carpenters.  And the people who distressed the wood.  What is their job title? Batterer?  "I hit wood".

    If my table holds memories, hopefully it will be inspirational to whoever owns it in the future, whether it's a member of my family or someone else.  May it never become firewood.

     

Comments (5)

  • Gorgeous boy. Gorgeous table. Gourdgeous you.

  • Dear Lisa,

    I was on "hiatus" for a while but I'm back blogging full time now. I love this entry about your table. I still have some of the older pieces of furniture from my family home. It is very interesting to think about the "lives" of inanimate objects. I believe, like the native Americans, that "spirit" endows rocks, fields, streams, and mountians. Trees probably did scream at one time, but after years as the table on which children have grown up coloring and crafting, the old "table tree" is probably proud as any father would be.

    Your Gourd College Website is excellently planned and executed, and it's neat to see that the classes are filling. You must be very proud of your endeavor.

    I'm writing as "Internet Island" because I'm going to RYC about the next Topic Post. It will be up on the Internet Island site sometime this weekend or early next week. To give you the first "heads up", since I "moved" the Island site off of "WhenWordsCollide", which is the site of baldmike2004, and onto it's own site, one of the "topics" will entail writing about moving, either physically or spiritually.

    Thanks for your participation, and "I'll see you on the Island".

    Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool

  • Lisa I am not sure the table keeps memories in it but what it is sure ( for me ) is it brings to us many memories . Often moving memories .

     Thanks for the prayers.
    Love            Michel

  • Chase on the picture seems to take the feeling of the table .
    Nice picture
    Love            Michel

  • Love that!  I think you have a softer wood there too, that just does not take long, hard wear like harder woods (20 yrs. ain't sa bad thought! )  I own an old, old, cutting table from a fabric shop that closed many moons ago.  The front dates it I believe, as it has original pieced beadboard (early 1900's?)  The top is made of 3 wide planks that are over 12 feet long each.  I was beside-myself-tickled because I bought it for only $100--the planks are worth lots more than that but the fact that many yards of fabric were cut and sold all over our community is much more valuable to me.  I wish it could tell its stories.

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