Nattyloo’s Sappy Love Letter to SOSA’s Dining Table (aka Anything to Avoid Work)

 

In the tradition of all brown families, our loudass kitchen has been the centerpiece of our home from the moment we moved in. And the first thing we came to collectively own, as a home, for 20 dollars each, sits there, adorned with hues of red and yellows: our dining table. My mother and I were too small of a family to ever put to use our medieval-fucking-royalty style dining table --- and let’s be real: brown people DO NOT let their babies use their fancyass/too big to fit/“I paid for in monthly installments” furniture. But, SOSA, at its peak of excitement, feels like a house full of superstars and divas hovering over stoves and cutting boards, waiting to beast out on our (more then likely) pottery barn dining table. This IS the table we expectantly wait at most nights while housemate after housemate walks in, beaming with (or weeping with) the latest love or work story. 

This is the table Neh and I spent too much time prepping for our 5 minute-not-so-finished art project (come find the work-in-progress in our living room!) 

where Anj (in Nat-speak: Panj, Panju, or PAAAANJALI!) desperately concocts vegetarian dishes buttered and oiled for my veg-reluctant-self 

where Sarah consoles my whining tax-burdened heavy heart, 

where Liz (Blizz) teaches me asparagus will not, in fact, make me gassy. 

where our honorary roommates visit to chop our hairs off or host a game-show. 

where SOSA, NOSA and BOSA rager-party-goers take a breather. 

Our dining table is the home of singing-in-unison, impromptu aerobics lessons and/or follow the leader running-in-line-because-we’re-at-our-breaking-point moments. 

I guess --- all of this to say---except for the old kitchen clock that used to hang on my aunt’s kitchen wall, I have always had a hard time loving things--- I look at them with excitement or nostalgia perhaps, with a sadness that dwells, but I don’t love them. 

But...

SOSA Dining table…

maybe, I sort of, kinda love you.