At some point in late spring, I looked at my kitchen table and realized that between the crafts, laptops, leftovers (and at some point even a Tupperware of tadpoles) this space had become the centre of my family?s life. It no longer gets cleaned for potlucks or wine dates with friends?it?s become an intensely communal place where the day?s debris gets thrown, where my family gathers in candid laughter and exhaustion, where we meet one another?s gaze again and again.
The mess on the table can feel suffocating, but I?ve also come to associate this space with comfort food, family time, and an unprecedented determination to hold it all together.
In the early days of the pandemic, our social media feeds were full of porch portraits: families squinting into the chilly spring sun, trying to look fine when nothing was fine at all. But in my opinion" The last six months have really been all about the kitchen table. Much like us, they?re holding far more than they ever have, sometimes serving multiple purposes at once. Photo: Courtesy of Brianna Sharpe
?Before, the table was just a place and a thing; now it?s more of a shared experience,? says architectural writer John Ota. As the author of the historical design book The Kitchen, Ota says that over the last few decades, it?s become increasingly rare for families to sit down without technology and eat even one meal a day together. But now, through this time, the table is regaining its status as a hearth: ?At first it was the f...