Upcycle & Gratitude

Okay, seriously, placemats are… kind of a conspiracy. It’s apparently not enough that we moved from crouching over a fire and eating from a communal bowl with our fingers. Now we have a plate and a table — and utensils, progress indeed — but currently we apparently need a little square of …something on which to set said plate atop said table. It’s kind of crazy, and at the end of the day, placemats are completely ridiculous and unnecessary. (Please, please do not get T started on charger plates and table runners, either.) All that being said, we have twelve of them…because T has sisters, sisters who have Things and must give them. Sometimes T is happy to take Things, because free Things and paint and glue go well together. (And if she can use buttons or magnets or felt or glitter? Bonus.)

Commonly accepted as ideal for children, in the vain hope of containing the messes they make, for preserving tables from water rings and heat marks, and for dressing up a casual-but-bare eating space but at D&T’s table, placemats are less for protecting the (Ikea, aka “seriously, does that plastic need protection?”) kitchen table and more for cramming more color into a 1970’s era very beige-and-white room. (We do love our bizarre faux marble counter, though. You just don’t see weird goldish-brown veins running through white Formica counter tops anymore. Probably a good thing.) We need the color. It’s gray here a lot lately. The gray foggy marine layer keeps things quite cool – and since we last month turned off the heat for the season, it is downright nippy in the morning – not that we’re going to complain about the muffling, insulating fog that keeps Spring sunshine from catapulting us straight into summer. (It was 80°F/26°C in parts of the East Bay this past weekend, but we drove the ten miles over the bridge to find it a balmy 70°F/21°C at home.) The fog rules here, with the sun emerging around lunchtime usually, so it’s hard to feel like leaping into the day when it’s chilly. Thus the placemats are really about making a bright start to the day.

To get that “bright” start to the day, of course we could have used the original pictures printed on the placemats… but we felt the leering, winking scarecrow on its bright pink and yellow background would probably put us off eating entirely. Since these are cheaply made (Kmart) canvas rectangles, treated to be water resistant, it was simple enough to flip them to their neutral side, give them a quick sponge wash, and then apply masking tape in random patterns. We chose five colors from a box of textile paints we had on hand, colors that would contrast brightly with anything (and not clash with the red table – but not match it, either) and just went for it. This was entirely random in the maybe-this-will-work,-maybe-not sort of way that the best art projects have. And, it’s a little rough and messy, but really worked out. T. only did six, since the pattern on the others isn’t quite as egregious as the leering strawman, but she’s tempted to do a more autumnal palette for those.

So, yes, yes — placemats are a racket, a silly bourgeois affectation, an upper-middle class pretension to fancydom. But. Every meal can have moments of the sacred and beautiful. Every moment at table with family and loved ones or with an interesting book, eating nutritious and delicious food should be noted, elevated, celebrated. Life is precious. Light your candles, pull out your pretty tumblers. Throw down those bright squares of linen and bamboo — or those laminated plastic maps depicting the fifty states. Then, fold hands and breathe, close out the noise and the traffic, the speed and the blur of your days. Deliberately see those cherished faces, deliberately experience those scents and flavors, exhale and murmur, Thank you, thank you. I am still here. We are all still here.