In the Solitary Darkness
by Robert P. Barsanti
I am cleaning out my father's apartment these days. I have sent most of the old sweaters and jackets to the Salvation Army. The ancient cheeses and olives have found their way down the trash chute. The rest of the family valuables, most of which are serving dishes and Christmas ornaments, are slowly getting disseminated to the rest of the family or to the first fifty people on Craig's List. Whoever makes it to the door first can have the special singing snowman with the wob-wob-wobbly eyes.
I have come to the point where I need to think of my future with the bigger pieces. Times have changed, and I don't have a room that needs a breakfront or a sidetable. My parents, surfing on the leading edge of the baby boom, could afford four bedrooms and a mausoleum of a dining room. Their son, at the bleeding edge of Gen-X, can't fit any of this stuff in his apartment. Still, some articles of furniture have so much history and so much use that some exception must be made. The living room table deserves to find a home in storage for a while.
Some children had a life centered on the basketball hoop in the driveway. Others fell into the playroom in the basement, complete with pool table, bean bag chairs, and the illicit dark. I grew up with the pleasures of the table. The living room table held the cake, the lemon meringue pie, and the blond brownies of my grandmother. My uncle served "GI Joe Chicken" and any of a host of Bon Appetit delicacies on it. My father prepared spaghetti dinner every Wednesday, and (the grease-fest) breakfast every Sunday morning. Almost every other night, my mother would dip into the wonder of Campbell's Soup Cookbook.
The drama of my childhood played out in the living room of our house. That room had the comfortable chairs, the TV, the fireplace, and this table. It was shaped like a pill; my father sat on one of the long sides, facing the TV. My mother faced him and blocked the ballgame. My sister sat to his left at one rounded end while my brother and I shared the other rounded end. My parents were caught in the crossfire.
Much was said at that table that could be unsaid, but I can't remember it. We were a foul and filthy set of children; we had a quip, comment, or flip phrase for almost every occasion. At out best, my father would slam his silverware down and bellow "You are vulgar." My mother, for her part, would bite her lip and half snicker, unless we let loose a good one, then she would laugh.
Later in the evening, when we were supposed to be asleep, the family friends would come over for Manhattans, Scrabble, and gossip. The next morning, when we woke up an hour before dawn, the table would have cigarette butts in ashtrays, dessert dishes, and wine glasses. Not anymore.
Tonight, the table just holds trash bags, packing tape, and me. For all of its importance to my childhood, my world neither began nor ended at this table. Much was said here, but little was actually done here. The table was for judgements, critiques, and ripostes. Egos were deflated, pride was wounded, and confidence earned. But nothing was accomplished on its surface, other than Algebra homework. Nothing can really get done under the bright light of your sister and the jaundiced eye of Dear Old Dad;our life's work—the things we hand down to our children—are created in the solitary dark.
When Maria Mitchell discovered her comet, she wasn't sitting at dinner or having coffee. According to the story, she had escaped just such a dinner to climb up to the roof and peer through the telescope. To earn her medal and leave her mark, she had to turn away from that family and sit in the darkness. In that solitary darkness, she found diamonds.
The rest of us may not have a rooftop observatory, but we have tables that we need to push away from. The accomplishments of our lives, the real accomplishments that sit on the desk or are perched on the mantle or hang on a wall, don't come from the table but from the darkness.
The table is full of people and voices that you love and might respect. They will stick their minds and their opinions into your head, mess with your work, and leave you flustered in their gaze. But in silence, the only voice to listen to is yours. In the darkness, the only person you can see is yourself.
The Whaling Museum is full of gifts from the night. Paintings, quilts, dresses, and even toys were created in the dark of the barn or the studio. James Walter Folger's remarkable wood carvings were not work done in the clear sunlight of family and friends, but cut and carved in the fecund night. William Chase could have been doing many more far practical things with his talents than making whirligigs. Even the quilts and needlepoint were done by women who had to put food on the table and money in the bank. Their quilts and art were made during time stolen and cheated from husbands and children.
Afterward, when the paint has dried and been sealed, when the novel is finished, when the final stitch is put in, then the work can be brought to the table. At the end, it can pass its judgement, then the work can go out into the world and into time. Our dreams may drink coffee with us, and put their arms around our children, but those dreams become real in the still of the night, in the quiet room near the attic. The table is for talk, the darkness is for action.
This table, one of the last holdouts from my childhood, has heard the great debates roll back and forth over it. Meals were eaten, drinks were drunk, wars were fought and truces negotiated. We were the lords of light and lesser things, pronouncing our judgements with arrogance and wit. And none of it lasts. None of the quick words or wonderful meals exist for me to show the boys. Like the house that it sat in and the people that sat at it, Everything is gone. But, above the table, hangs one sky blue stained glass dolphin, a relic from one of my mothers' hobbies of the seventies. Soddered together in the basement, the dolphin has a familiar shape and color, but it has the head of a shark and the tale of a goldfish. I have no doubt that we lanced my mother with all of that and more. But today, sixteen years after her last cup of coffee, her stab at art has lasted longer than our words.
