The objects that ground our love and the ways we honor them.
By Kelly Mittendorf
Illustrations by Klara Graah
Published
One of my favorite works of art is Carrie Mae Weems’ “Kitchen Table Series.” Weems conceptualized and stars in the series, wherein her character is portrayed in various emotional states and surrounded by people of unknown, but assumable, relevance to her.
“She suggests the kitchen table is the real stage where life’s biggest moments play out, and where the full range of human emotions is expressed,” describes the National Gallery. My fiancée and I have our own version of the “kitchen table”: a pair of vintage Herman Miller-designed Eames dining chairs.
I was sitting in one when AJ kissed me for the first time, which happened to be the exact moment I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with them. It was 2 a.m., so I documented the life-changing moment by texting my friends, “OMG.”
As we’ve grown throughout four-ish years of loving and sitting beside each other, we often discuss how many “OMG” life moments are framed by the chairs. During our first Valentine’s Day together, AJ gave me a vintage Herman Miller advertisement of the same chairs being used throughout the day with the slogan, “Life goes on around a chair.” When AJ proposed, we walked back to our apartment filled with adrenaline, giggles, and champagne and decided we would be sitting in these chairs at our wedding reception.
My parents are divorced (it’s an amicable, good thing for them) and perhaps as a byproduct, I grew up not prioritizing romantic endeavors. Part of that was also due to the fact that I was severely shy and independent, part of it was because I was gay and didn’t figure it out until I was in my mid 20s. I didn’t know that love like this — a kitchen table love — was possible. When we sit in our chairs, in the home we have built, often surrounded by the community we have forged together, I am able to see a future I couldn’t have imagined.
Loving AJ is the easiest thing I’ve ever done. Getting married, on the other hand, is surprisingly terrifying. I’m so sure I want to spend every day sitting beside them that I’m not worried about AJ hurting me, I’m worried about AJ getting hurt. I’m not worried about loving each other, I’m worried about what the world might throw at us.
The beauty of Weems’ work is not about the table itself. Rather, it is about the people around it — the relationships, resilience, and the love shared there. This is what I want my marriage to be about. And no matter what the world — hateful politicians, , what have you — may throw our way, our life will still go on around a chair.
