That One Room With The Long Table

We don’t get to stay at the party forever

May 17, 2024

And one day, when I need/ to tell myself something intelligent/ about love,/ I’ll close my eyes/ and recall this room and everything in it This Room and Everything in it By Li-young Lee

There is something about the way a light will turn on in a room. And that you can look out on a city or a street or some other collection and face the feeling of knowing life has gathered in those places even if you cannot see to who it belongs inside. A friend's house especially, where you are aware of the room, but a stranger’s too. The people don’t even need to be inside, they can step out for a smoke or answer the phone, or more simply they forgot to turn the lights off, but it's understood that someone once was there to turn them on, someone needed to see the floorboards and the coffee tables and the vases on the shelves. It's the suggestion really, that someone exists. That you know that they exist because everything points to the fact that they do, which makes me think about forever.

And there is something also about the way you will spend your entire life in exactly one room. The one with the long table and the many candles. You’ve picked it all out, the best people, your friends and family, but you’ve laid twice as many seats as you think. Enough space for everyone, for surprises, and a few good courses with laughter. Someone always tells a funny story at a party while someone else makes an intelligent remark.

But no one gets to stay at the party forever. The moment comes, the one where people begin to leave and we start to think about memory, about living. Until someone mentions the desire to be part of a collective remembering. Not just that of the room with the long table, but the others outside of it with their own tables. The ones we are not in, where we cannot hear what they’re saying, even the ones being built somewhere on a block far away. They want, it seems, to be at the party even if they’re not in attendance, even if they’ve gone home again.

I can see it from my seat as I listen to this idea, the lights on in other places. So I know that people are inside them. I don’t have to know them to know that this is true. It is precious in its own way, even if I cannot say their name. We know that they exist because life always leaves its suggestions. A lip print on a glass, the dirty napkin, or even an echo down an empty hall. The pages of a book are dog-eared, the sink gets toothpaste on the rim, someone tells a story who tells the story who later references the story—it's proof that something happened there. And when the book gets thrown out or the glass goes through the dishwasher, it doesn’t mean that it never happened, that they were never there.

When someone thinks too long about the other rooms and their being inside them even if they are here now I always find the urge from my seat to say, but I remember you, I’m here now. I remember. I threw this party so we could be here, I set the table, made sure you were at it. And the party will end, someone will leave first, but I’ll remember the food you like, the color of your lipstick. I’ll know it was you who laughed. This is something not explained with any ease, ineffable in quality, the feeling that comes from this particular communion. This room will never happen again, which is actually a good thing. Which makes it so important that we are in it together instead of thinking about the other places with their lights on. You won’t feel their warmth, you won’t enjoy or know them the way you know this one.

It isn’t terribly important to me that they think what I think, but I do want them to know what I know. Sometimes your existence is big to other people even if it’s not to you. Sometimes your whole life is just one room.

I don’t know. I think it's enough. To see the candle wax collect on the holder, to drip and solidify suggesting time has passed. What do we know? That someone burned them, that someone was indeed here to burn them. And if we’re lucky we know the person who did the lighting, we saw them in the light with the others who had gathered, to smell the fine scent of a room with people living in it. We leave our traces. My friends, my family, I know they remember the party where we collected. That long night where we laughed and played cards and they knew when I was lying. Who else matters but us?

I feel that most acutely at the table with my friends where time is moving in such a way that is unnoticeable to you until it isn’t. Until the candlelight is going out and the loud voices have collected to a murmur. The cars have stopped coming with any more frequency and it is possible, maybe, that someone will turn up late but it seems that everyone you invited has arrived. There is a very clear presence to those moments where you are gathered and the food is finished. And you know eventually one by one everyone there is going to leave, but you remember everything they said so far, every gesture they made or spill on the floor, and the light is on so everyone outside knows you’re here. I think about that often, I think about the mere suggestions that life is happening, the way even if we don’t know each other we know of each other.

And it does happen. People leave early.

Maybe you leave early.

And your friends will pile the dishes in the sink and wash them ceremoniously. Stacking them on the drying rack so that someone else may use them. Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m saying that I think that this will do, that I was here. I’m saying that, it's okay if I’m forgotten. I just hope that you remember. Even if it's only once, as the apartment is clearing for someone else to scuff the walls. They don’t know my name, but you do. And there by the door is a switch. I like to imagine the last person at the threshold, hand on the wall, flicking off the switch to save me on electricity. I just mean that you and I were here together, it's enough if only we know that for sure. I just mean that no one lives forever.

Slowmaxxing: a term popularized by @robyns_quill is about taking your time and the way we can enjoy and appreciate life when we really look at it. My version of living slowly has involved mulling over the things I consume for longer. Here’s what has been circling my brain:

This video of clouds
Interview with Carson: This whole quote reminds me of something my professor told me in which he said that even if we are both speaking the same language and it is our only language, we are limited to our experience and understanding of what the other person says. That we will never 100% understand each other. Which makes intimacy a very interesting thing, what is the language we make together?
The library/study (I assume) of Anïs Nin:
Conjuntos by Felipe Bedoya
The Last lines of this quote in an Interview with James Baldwin: “And I’ll tell you this, my father frightened me so badly. I had to fight him so hard that nobody ever frightened me since. That is an inheritance.” I only read this last night before bed but I cannot stop thinking about the last sentence. That is an inheritance. It’s circling my brian like this: That is an inheritance. That is an inheritance. That is an inheritance. What is my inheritance?? That is an inheritance. That is an inheritance. inheritance.
This quote from an analysis of The Little Prince said by Byung-Chul Han: “Rituals are to time as rooms are to an apartment. They make time accessible like a house. They organise time, arrange it. In this way you make time appear meaningful.” I write often with the imagery of a house or a room (clearly), a teacher once told me I had an affinity for other people’s houses. I cannot stop thinking about this idea, that rituals make rooms of time.

Forgive this shorter newsletter, my friend is getting married.

September 17th, 2022 10:45 am one hour before the engagement. Thanks for coming to the table Grace and Mike.

That’s all this month! If you enjoyed the little conversation we had let me know! Save, share, and tag @chloeinletters

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My email, if you want to cut to the chase, is letterstochloew@gmail.com where you can let me know what you think or ask me a question about what you saw here!

Here’s to my long table

Chloé