In 2019 I bought a new dining room table. At the time I bought it mostly to make it easier to host Creative Nights, something I used to hold at my house every other Friday night, for a number of creatively inclined co-worker friends. These friends would gather and talk and drink and write and sketch and design and those evenings were one way I reminded myself that there were other ways to push deeply into life. I liked those days.
And, I was more than happy to buy that table for primarily that purpose. I didn’t need the table, per se, if only evaluating need by myself. At that point in my life–apart from those Creative Nights–the only people keeping time and sitting meals in my dining room were my kids and me (and even we weren’t there most nights, spending 3/7 at my dad and stepmom’s). So we didn’t need it. But I did, I think, as my way of offering something to the people who would come to my house and conjur the form of magic that occurs when creative people coexist.
Creative Nights ended when 2019 did, partially because when I established the activity in early 2019, I said, let’s do this for a year and then we can revisit and see what we want after that, and so, when 2019 wrapped up, so did our confirmed commitment, pending renewal. And then 2020 quickly swooped in and shat on everything, and the Creative Nights held at that table are now a becoming-distant memory.
When Matt moved in, in 2020, and when my kids returned from their several-month stint of sheltering in place at their dad’s (when we all, stupidly, thought that the pandemic would resolve by fall) to be with us for several months, space in our not overlarge house was difficult to find. I have taken many work calls from my bed (::shrug::). Somehow, by virtue of some silent negotiation, my 2020 office became that table. That table became my office.
It troubles me a little that the table I bought to support the creative sides of myself and others has become the place where I sit for Teams meetings and work tasks. But the great thing about tables is that their surfaces can be cleared and reset . So I hold onto that.
Today’s prompt: Look back at a previous prompt and how you responded. Respond to that prompt again in a completely different way.
The prompt I’m revisiting: Day 5 – Write about the places or spaces where you spent your 2020.
Jackie Lutzke 