The Kitchen Table
A Graduation Speech about writing papers, traveling solo, and several different tables.
By Sierra Beilby | Writer
I am sure most of us remember the first time we walked through the doors of Bethel University on some junior review day or April overnight or football scouting trip. But I do remember. The first time I walked in Bethel’s halls I was two. Actually, one of the first times I walked was in Bethel’s halls. I was raised to go to this school; I had the apparel, I’d been to the Homecomings, I knew where important stuff was, like the ice cream machine and AC third floor bathrooms. However, when I walked through these halls for the first time as I welcome weeker, I had never felt more disconnected from a community. I suddenly was detached from an experience I had waited for my whole life, and from the people who were experiencing it with me. Despite being surrounded by crowds of equally anxious freshman, who were all pretending like they weren’t desperate to have a friend, I felt alone. For the first time, I was traveling solo.
When I tell people that I traveled solo in Scotland in November 2018, the comments that follow are usually along the lines of “you are so brave!” or “I don’t know how you did that.” These pieces of well meaning small talk always confuse me, because in this instance I knew exactly how I was able to travel solo. I started that journey in the same way I began any paper I have ever written; I open a Google Document, change the font to 12 point Times New Roman, create an appropriate heading, and allow it to sit there until my paper writing atmosphere is at the perfect point between maximum motivation and maximum stress. However, despite the dramatic preamble, once I sit down to write my first few sentences the rest of the paper pours out of me, like the Gooseberry River in April, swollen by a winter’s worth of snow melt. We all start journeys in the same way. How did I solo travel, people ask. After a long prelude of planning and booking and researching, I finally woke up on November 22nd at 5:30am, and I planted my two feet on the cold hard street in Islington, London. The roads had a morning mist settled over them that hinted to the sun’s imminent rising. I walked up the street to Angel tube station, and from that point on I did not look back. From the first two steps of my feet against the dirty concrete, I was already traveling solo.
From the minute our parent’s cars pulled away from Bethel University on the first day of Welcome Week, set to the alarming tune of uniformly dressed, over-caffeinated upperclassmen cheering, we were already traveling solo. These were our first two steps. Our first two sentences. And the question remains, what will the rest of our paper be on? How will our journey be written? Or deeper still, how will we write it, and how will we walk it? Who will sit down across from us and maybe allowing the traveling to be a bit less solo?
In order to answer some of these questions, I am going to share the best advice I received while traveling solo. My first night in Edinburgh, I walked up Princes Street toward Waverly Station to where the annual Edinburgh Christmas Market was lit up with soft string lights on the trees, and harsh neon lights on the portable ferris wheel. The air smelled like pine and cinnamon and cold wind from the highlands. While I stood cradling my hot chocolate, looking out over the lights of Edinburgh old town, a man approached me. He wore a tan peacoat with the collar popped up around his neck, and an earth green hat pulled down over his balding head. He had to have been about three inches shorter than me, 45 years my senior, and struck up a conversation with me in a thick Scottish accent. From our brief encounter I learned he is a professor, he does not like London, and once a year he makes it his mission to have a conversation with a tourist. Me, quite obviously the annual tourist, asked him “why?” out of a budding curiosity. He replied, “because you never really know a place until you have your feet under the kitchen table.”
I never learned that man’s name. We parted ways that night with the understanding the we are on separate journeys, that were not likely to intersect ever again. But for that brief 20 minutes, as I stood shivering the Edinburgh Christmas Market, this Scottish local allowed me to metaphorically put my feet under his kitchen table.
Too often, when we have the opportunity to meet new people, go new places, and experience new things, we make the mistake of taking them to dinner. We dress ourselves up and we meet “life” with a well-constructed face, in a cordial, dimly-lit environment. Maybe we speak of ourselves a bit, or brush off light political banter, but nothing that gives away anything messy that may be lurking beneath the surface. However, new things in life keep coming, and we have to get acclimated to them whether we’d like to or not. So maybe we make the second mistake; we invite “life” over for dinner. We prepare food and a table, and when people walk through the door we apologize that the house is a mess. Maybe we give a tour of our house anyways, but once we sit down at the dining room table, our guests are still quite aware of the best we have to offer. Through the night we sip red wine and worry about how we measure up amidst all this newness and uncertainty. We worry if the world will find us to be good, beautiful, competent, and put-together.
That chilly November night, when I was alone in Edinburgh, I felt more connected to the world than I had in a long time. I felt suddenly attached to Scottish strangers — with their strong whiskey breath as they said “hiya” and “cheers” instead of “hello” and “goodbye.” The difference in life experience between my unnamed Scottish friend and I were rendered void, simply because he invited me to the kitchen table. He gave of himself, and I was willing to give back. So as we go out from our familiar communities and encounter new experiences, don’t forget the value that comes from a willingness to give of yourself. Or a willingness to allow others to be as deeply complex as we are. Or a willingness to treat every table like your kitchen table. To treat the streets of Edinburgh like your kitchen table. To treat the halls of Bethel University like your kitchen table. That sort of vulnerability is never easy, but there is a freedom that can flow from it. A freedom to cry at the kitchen table, freedom to worship, to be unapologetic, to curse, to yell, and to love. And who knows, maybe you’ll encourage more people to live into their humanity and pull up a chair. Thank you, and congrats.
