We are Table-Setters!
Setting our own tables beyond the Holidays
We hit the 100+ mark this month.
We are pretty extraordinary. I like us. We pay-it-forward and set a Welcome Table for others. I see you reading, and liking, and sharing and reposting, and
I am grateful to be in community with you.
As some of us prepare to gather around tables for a feast of food, family, love, and friends, we ritualize and remember recipes, song, stories; we navigate new and old relationships, dietary restrictions, personal reflections - “Am I where I thought I’d be yet?”, “Does my kid even like me?”, “Am I getting fatter or are my pants too tight?”, “Are my parents forgetting things?”. We bring our whole selves to sit across a table from people we may not know; our insecurity, our fame, our guilty wins, our shame, our dreams come true, our titles yet lived up to, our honor, our beauty.
We are all so brave.
My aunt asked me to read a poem at Thanksgiving this year. I am ready. Will I read from my best friends new book? Or Nikki Giovanni, always on repeat in my head? Maybe I’ll read one of my Dad’s poems. He was an award-winning poet and wrote under a pseudonym. Maybe I’ll write a poem specific to these times. A Haiku or Lune. I prefer to read from a book so how about Gwendolyn Brooks? My library is filled with poets and writers. What an honor to be able to choose from Black writers who share stories from their lens of life.
We read their words decades later and know truths about the world that we may have never learned from a text book or popular culture.
This is how I felt turning the pages of lined notebooks in Baldwin’s estate at the Schomburg Center for Black Research. To observe the curve of his penmanship, to feel the fragility of the unfinished, however well archived, is transcendent. I could hear the voices of the people gathered around the table for dinner, then transfering to the piano or the bar, moving freely, uninhibited by time and title restrictions. The chef flowing in-between with a pot in hand. Ignoring the fear of being enough.
Being sure of oneself is a birthright. Anything else is a lie. Let it go.
Last year, I sat around my own table with family - chosen and blood. Temperatures were high as Americans exercised our right to vote. Black women gathered and sacrificed and lost. Our jobs, our livelihoods, your trust. We understand the assignment; we know what’s at stake. So, we now set new tables to gather and we require you to show up. This moment is meant to be divisive so let’s revise our social contracts. Let’s redefine our community needs and ways of being and we succeed.
We are table-setters.
Let’s create tables we want to sit at beyond our time here.
People will read about us and be inspired, be brave and have a seat at a Welcome Table.
I’d like to invite you to set more tables for global majority artists. I envision a Welcome Table expanding beyond East Harlem and I need your help. I envision having a paid chef-in-residence, a rotating team of paid guest facilitators and artists who help set the tone and vibe of the event. I envision getting paid a salary to lead a Welcome Table and having a staff of producers and administrators who help make the event possible in multiple places. I envision sponsors who pay for food, supplies, space and extras - Yes, EXTRAS! We give ourselves permission to be opulent.
Here’s how you can help:
SUBSCRIBE upgrade to become a paid subscriber monthly, annually, or founding member
Make a TAX DEDUCTIBLE donation or encourage someone to donate on your behalf (we have a fiscal sponsor - Thank you, Culture Push)
SHARE with key individuals who can help bring the vision to life. Your network expands our network by becoming donors, subscribers and allies who help bring the vision to life.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
Let’s see how far we can go, together.
Have a lovely grateful weekend!