A Card Table Kind of Gal

I sat in the closet surrounded by my obscene amount of clothes. The pants and skirts and dresses and jackets weren’t covering my body. They were buffering sound. My hand-held recorder propped on the card table, I recorded my first set of short stories.
The card table had done extraordinary duty before. I’d used it as the “cash register” at cross shows, knocked its legs into place so I could fashion miniature furniture made from pages of a book, draped it with a linen tablecloth to transform it into the bar at a family wedding.
In addition to this brand-new Target card table, I have an old card table pitted with scissor wounds and pockmarked with glue.This table was my original “cross studio.” A long, long time ago, Bigmama gave me this card table. Growing up, Bigmama would whip out a card table on a moment’s notice. These fine tables hosted us kids at Thanksgiving or made eating on the back porch possible—Bigmama believed in the card table.
I also have a card table from my other grandmother, Mamo: an old green table with uncertain legs that constantly threaten to give way. Mama didn’t give me this table; I collected it when we were closing up her house, post-death. Of all the things offered, I mostly wanted the card table.
This is my continuum of being. I’m happy with a card table. Give me a fresh, proper card table, and I consider myself in high cotton. Undoubtedly, you’ll find me bent over the table working on a put-together, rag-tag, “make that stuff up as you go along” project.
That’s okay. What I’ve come to know—after many, many years—is how to keep from getting bored in this life.
Do it a new way.
Don’t try to follow someone else’s directions.
Do it now, with whatever you have on hand.
For such a philosophy, a card table is a joy.