time around the table
“Do you want some milk in your tea, Jess?” Gran addresses me at afternoon tea time. I accept the jug offered to me and add a splash to my steaming mug, the milk swirling against the black tea in a kaleidoscopic pattern.
And I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
Going to my grandparents farm in rural New South Wales always feels like coming home after a long journey (and the journey to Australia is certainly a long one). Driving down the narrow, pothole-ridden roads never fails to cause a swelling in my heart as the scenery becomes familiar again. Eucalyptus anoints the air with a heady fragrance and the paperbarks that line the highway accentuate the Australia-ness of the countryside.
Home again, I think, wondering at the fact that one can have many homes earthside. The places where one’s heart resides—or more to the point, the people with whom one’s heart resides. This is regardless of location.
These thoughts of home bring to mind Psalm 90, “Lord, through all the generations you have been our home!” The beauty and connection we experience in our earthly homes is a foreshadowing, a taste of what home truly is. Who home truly is.
I’m pulled back again to the conversation at hand. Gran and Pap are seated across from Lars and I at the table. Before us, a pot of black tea, a jar of sugar. And of course, Gran’s Anzac bickies. My senses are fully relaxed but also on full alert as I try to memorize the perfection of this moment.
Every time we are sitting at this table, I feel the crushing weight of how precious time is—how fleeting. Both Gran and Pap share yarns from their lives and ask questions about ours. Five years is a long time to catch up on and I find myself hungry to sop up every last bit of the stories they share. Part of me also carries the heavy weight of knowing that our time together is limited, seeing and hearing how much we’ve missed out on being so far away.
Our time at the farm is bookended by meals, time gathered around the table.
Lars and I, exhausted from our travel, head to bed early on the first day. When we awake, it’s to the sound of raindrops on the tin roof. We curl a little further beneath the woolen blankets and quilts, tugging them up to our chins. Then, slowly, we emerge, like butterflies from our cocoons. We gather at the table for breakfast—muesli, Weetbix, and toast (generously slathered with butter and Gran’s homemade preserves, naturally). Or, for the daring, there’s Vegemite, bitter and brown.
“It’s the Australian experience!” I tell Lars, offering him a bite of my Vegemite toast. He makes a face.
After breakfast, it’s all systems go for chores and cleanup. Lars and I wash and dry the dishes together. Pap sneaks off to shift a fence in the early morning drizzle. Gran bakes a loaf of bread. We putter around the house, garden, and chook pen, taking the day at a leisurely pace.
Then, as if by magic, we all find ourselves at the table again for morning tea. Gran has toasted scones for us all, which we cut open and spread with strawberry jam and whipped cream, washing it down with another proper “cuppa.” Mine is embroidered with milk and sugar, but Pap drinks his straight, like the absolute legend that he is. My teabag tag reads ‘a cuppa for our community,’ but it could just as well say ‘a cuppa for community.’ There’s something profoundly unifying about the routine of morning and afternoon tea.
We linger long at the table. Gran pulls out an album of photos, sepia-toned with age, and we pore over it, glimpses of generations past, not forgotten by these keepers of stories. Both Gran and Pap thread the photos together with anecdotes and memories of earlier years. Lars and I hang onto it all, holding it close.
At my Auntie Cathy & Uncle Angus’ farm in Manilla, we again find ourselves gathered around the table for meals. Tea is featured at breakfast and in the evening hours where everyone is gathered together on the verandah, separate yet together. Though not morning or afternoon tea, the premise remains the same—time to connect, to prioritize relationships with the people we love. And after a day’s work herding sheep, fixing vehicles, and preparing food, returning to the table ends the separation that ensued during the quotidian tasks. Here, we are all equals—givers and receivers alike.
If I’m not paying attention and I glance at Auntie Cathy, I see my mum. The similarity is striking. I find myself wondering what traits I’ve inherited from the Gambleys, how I fit into the mix. Even more so, I find myself grateful that these are people I get to call family.
Lars and I book tickets to travel to Victoria to see the Great Ocean Road. We catch a train to Sydney and then fly out at 6 am. When we arrive at Avalon Airport, we rent a car and start on the meandering road, listening to an audiobook version of The Two Towers. Time passes quickly, and at our first glimpse of the limestone structures, I am brought to tears. It is just too beautiful.
We go on the Gourmet Great Ocean Road, too, trying out all of the local artisans, from ice cream to a bouchier to a pub to a dairy. We taste cheeses, fudge, fresh strawberries, and Thai food. I am secretly thankful that Lars is a foodie and has pushed me out of my comfort zone of culinary experience.
Then, we are traveling back up the coast on a late-night six-hour drive. We arrive at my Uncle Dave and Auntie Mind’s beach house as 12:30 am, falling into a deep slumber almost immediately. When we awake, it’s more tea and chats with Uncle Dave. We plan to have a sunset picnic of fish and chips.
The picnic is more than I could have dreamed. We tote a picnic basket with water, glasses, salad, and plates up the grassy hillside. From atop the peak, we can see the ocean beyond the bluffs, hear the waves crashing against the beach, and the sunset paints the sky around us in vibrant pinks and oranges. We laugh and swap stories yet again. I see my mum in the cut of Uncle Dave’s jawline, in the way he smiles. Family is such a powerful composition.
I’m texting back and forth with Auntie Kerrie, and eventually, we determine that Sunday would work best to join her family on Mt. Tamborine. Lars and I take another drive, arriving just as the late afternoon light is spilling through the trees in dusky beams. Cyclone Alfred’s effects are immediately visible, but this community has banded together to recover from the destruction.
Auntie Kerrie and Uncle DC offer us tea and we sit around the table chatting. The meals we share are punctuated with catching up and laughter. Being with family feels so good, so rejuvenating.
Every time we go to Australia, I am struck by this simple practice of morning and afternoon tea. It is a liturgy of sorts, a recentering, a reconnection point throughout the day. It is expected that folks will make time to sit down, share some tea and stories, and take a moment to just be together. I daresay that this extends to regular mealtime, too.
If there’s one thing I hope to carry on as a tradition with my own family, it’s this—the lingering around the table. Everyone is welcome. If someone were to drop by, they would be heartily embraced and invited to join us.
This experience reminds me of the Ram Dass quote: we’re all just walking each other home. We’re all passing through this world, travelers on the road. We are ephemeral beings—our fragile bodies breaking, falling apart, and decaying even as we inhabit them. But still, we long for connection, for the with-ness of others on this journey. And it is not a journey without a destination.
Revelation proclaims,
“Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.”
As we draw ever nearer to the beautiful scene promised in Revelation, let us linger long around the table. Let us welcome all to join us, scootching our own chairs over and pulling another out of storage to make room.
