The Dinner Table

The most important conversations of my life happened over food I can't remember and meals I'll never forget. My father told me he was leaving over spaghetti. My mother told me she was staying over coffee that went cold between her hands. We say grace before eating but the real prayer is the eating itself— the passing of bread, the sharing of salt, the ancient agreement that we will nourish each other before nourishing ourselves. Every culture has a table. Every table has a center. Every center holds whatever that family calls love— rice or roast or ramen or nothing but each other and that's enough. The food is not the point. The table is not the point. The point is the sitting— the choosing to be in one place with people who drive you insane and calling it dinner.