THE WALNUT TREE

AN OBJECT OF WONDER:

The object:

The coffee table.

It was North Carolina, a walnut tree, stood alone in the front yard of family house. For seventeen years it dropped it’s black walnuts on the ground and the family picked them up one by one and peeled off the cracked cover to reveal the hard shell underneath. They waited until the green husk cracked before they peeled it open. The walnuts were delicious but if you tried to open them too soon your fingers would stain with the peeling and pieces would jam under your fingernails until they hurt, and until the nut had dried for a while, its flavor was immature. So, they waited and slowly gathered them up like squirrels, waiting for winter. The nuts ended out in a large bag. If they weren’t careful, the rodents would infiltrate, or the raccoons, so they kept them safe behind closed doors, until late fall.

This year the winter had been particularly dry, and after so many years of abundance, the leaves never showed up in Spring. No buds available, the branches were barren.

“I’m afraid that’s it,” said Pa.

“We’re going to have to chop down that tree.”

The tree itself wasn’t sad, because he had watched the children grow, had led a wonderful life with children climbing on the branches and waiting one more day for another adventure. It didn’t hurt when they sawed, and chopped and pulled it down. When Pa brought it into the woodshop, he created thin veneer, peeled back little strips of the tree and turned it into squares and triangles. Placed it on a flat surface and started to sand. One of the branches became a leg, then another and another until it supported the flat surface.

It’s deepest desire was to live again with the family, and it found itself in the living room holding plates, supporting a card game, listening to the chatter.

Outside one of the nuts had taken root and already sprouted and new branches grew out with leaves and buds and by the time the table was done, it was already 4 feet tall.

The youngest child crawled over to the table and grabbed hold. Over and over again until he was able to stand and look over the edge and reach for the cards that lay on the table and gleefully throw them all over the carpet.

One day Pa took out the stain jar and started to change the colors, alternating dark and red with each of the small bits of veneer that made up the tables design. Then he took a smelly polyurethane coating and layered that on until the squares and design seemed to flow from the table in a mesmerizing design of squares and depth that made everyone want to touch the table to see if it moved.

He loaded it up in his truck and brought it to the county fair, and it was so fascinating people surrounded it and exclaimed when they saw it. But in spite of all the attention, the table felt alone again. It longed to be touched, not to be admired. It longed to be included, not given awards. It waited two weeks and when Pa showed up to take the blue ribbon coffee table home, it seemed to increase in beauty with every mile, until Pa himself sighed when he brought it back to fill up the too long empty space in the home.